Quote:
> I think, the main reason was that the treaty tried to do too much at once.
> A treaty that is presented as a constitution should have rules about
> decision processes, rights of inhabitants, and so on. It should *not*
> rule that the economy is market-driven, for instance.
Yes, the Constitution developed by the European Convention (with
representatives from all member states and "candidate" countries) and
agreed upon by the European Council is quite voluminous. Not exactly
surprising if you keep in mind that it was supposed to replace the
existing EC Treaty and EU Treaty as amended in Nice, which will now
remain effective ... but not efficient <g>.
So maybe we should have had a "lean" Constitution, with much of the rest
moved to other legal documents. What I still find a little strange is,
the part about the market driven economy has been in the Treaties from
the _very_beginning_. Somebody over at europa.union was nice enough to
copy the relevant parts in English, which saves me some time checking
for a translation of my German language version ...
From Article 3 of the original Treaty of Rome (dated 1957):
| (...) the activities of the Community shall include, as provided in
| this Treaty and in accordance with the timetable set out therein (...)
| a system ensuring that competition in the internal market is not
| distorted."
Pretty much the same text can be found in the Treaties as amended later,
particularly in Maastricht. And what do we find in Article I-3 of the
Constitutional Treaty?
| The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and
| justice without internal frontiers, and an internal market where
| competition is free and undistorted.
Does not look like a fundamental difference to me, as far as
"competition" in the internal market is concerned. But I believe anyway
that even a legal framework split into a constitution and other treaties
would have been rejected in some referendums. And for reasons that do
not have much to do with the texts themselves.
Christian
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