http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1046000/1046323.stm

EU draws up a draft 'constitution'

Chris Patten: Ruled out "journey to some ghastly superstate"

The European Union faces accusations that it is secretly drawing up a
Euro-constitution following news that it is working on a document setting
out its fundamental purposes.

Chris Patten Eurosceptics have attacked the move as taking the EU a step
closer towards becoming a federal superstate.

The draft treaty is intended to rationalise the principles already set out
in the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Rome, putting in plain language
the fundamental aims of the EU.

But European Commissioner Chris Patten, the Conservative former cabinet
minister, has insisted the aim of the document is to set boundaries to the
EU's powers.

No superstate

Mr Patten welcomed the document, which is being drawn up by a committee of
experts.

The rough proposed treaty includes policy guidelines and also recommends
mandatory membership of the single European currency.

Francis Maude "I think it is time to have a statement of principals and a
charter of competence, some people have even dared to call it a
constitutional framework, setting out what should be done at a European
level and what should be done at a national level," Mr Patten told BBC
Radio 4's Today programme.

"We have to make clear in the treaty that there is no question of subsuming
the individual nations in some other structure, so people cannot go on
pretending we're on a journey to some ghastly superstate."

Cold War

But shadow foreign secretary Francis Maude said the new document would
expand the EU's powers.

"It is still in the superstate model, the old bloc model, which is an
outdated dogma, it is a relic of the Cold War," he told the same programme.

"What a modern Europe needs is to be enlarged, to heal the divide that
disfigures Europe, separating eastern and central Europe from western
Europe.

"We need a flexible Europe, with independent nations co-operating together.

"This document doesn't do that, it takes us further and further down the
relentless one-way conveyor belt towards the superstate."

'Scare stories'

Europe Minister Keith Vaz insisted that the document was not a constitution.

Mr Vaz said: "I think it is important to define the limits, I think that's
what people want to do.

"But this report was produced in May of this year, it's been around for
quite a long time.

"The reason why people are getting worked up about it of course is that
here's another opportunity for the eurosceptics ... to have a little dig
and to produce some more scare stories about a constitution.

"A debate of this kind is perfectly acceptable and we will look at the
proposals and we will have our own views," he said.

"I don't see what the fuss is about."

Certainty and transparency

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Menzies Campbell said said the
time was right for a European constitution.

It would, he said, give certainty and transparency and "would certainly
mean that the debate about the extent and limits of the existing treaties
would no longer be conducted in the kind of arid and ill-informed way in
which it is at the present".
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A.K. Pritchard
http://www.ideasign.com/chiliast/
http://rosie.acmecity.com/songfest/189/

"The Gore position is that the election must be decided
by letting a few hundred morons vote and re-vote and
re-re-vote until they manage to punch the right hole.
Republicans may be 'the stupid party,' but at least the
average conservative gun-nut can put a nice clean shot
through the correct hole on his ballot from 200 yards. "

- Columnist Mark Steyn, London Daily Telegraph, 10/12/00

http://www.ideasign.com/chiliast/moron.htm

A.K. Pritchard