Giscard d'Estaing vraagt Europese leiders eerlijk te zijn over Grondwet (en)

EUBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The architect of the draft EU constitution has called on national governments to be honest about what they are trying to achieve with negotiations on a new-look treaty for the bloc and not deceive EU citizens.

Writing in French daily Le Monde, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing said EU leaders should not be afraid to tell citizens that they are essentially trying to preserve the text of the constitution that was rejected by French and Dutch voters two years ago.

"If governments agree on a simplified treaty preserving the essential institutional advances, they should not be afraid to say so and write so."

Pointing to the likelihood that the original constitution will be divided up with its "innovative elements" tacked on to the current Nice and Maastricht treaties and technical parts put into a non-descript treaty, the former French president noted that the public would then be "led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them 'directly'."

While noting that it might be a good exercise in "presentation" he went on to criticise that it will "reinforce the idea among European citizens that European construction is a machinery organised behind their backs by jurists and diplomats."

His words come exactly a week before EU leaders are due to gather in Brussels for a crunch summit on a new treaty.

They go to the heart of what most member states have been trying to do but have been less forthright about saying: preserving as much of the text as possible, taking out overtly constitutional elements - such as the EU symbols - and making the minimum changes necessary to allow the French and Dutch leaders to go back to their respective parliaments with a text that feels different.

The chopped up text - currently it is an unwieldy 448-article document - would then go for ratification by national parliaments, presented as the more palatable amended treaties of Nice and Maastricht rather than the more emotive draft EU constitution, that would make a referendum in the UK and other EU sceptical countries impossible to avoid.

Deconstructing Giscard's text

There is likely to be as much chagrin behind Mr Giscard word's for the fact that EU leaders are taking his constitution apart as for the fact that they could be deceiving EU citizens.

He spent a year and half presiding over the 2002 to 2003 convention that drew up the text and its shape, style and content was largely a result of his wishes.

At times he intimated he wanted to go even further, drawing parallels between the convention on the future of the EU and the Philadelphia Convention that prepared a constitution for the United States and comparing himself to Benjamin Franklin, one of America's founding fathers.