Europe Readies to Embrace its First Constitution

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul will attend the signature ceremony in Rome. EU member countries will sign an agreement about European Constitution and a final bill while the candidate countries will sign only the final bill.

The ceremony will be held at the Sala Degli Orazi and Cruazi Hall in the building of Campidoglio in which six founding members of the Union signed the Rome Agreement in 1957.

The European Constitution is not a replacement for member state Constitutions; however, it will be for many agreements forming the Union’s structure. Definition of EU, its fields of authority and the fields that the Union shares the authority with member states will be incorporate within a single document. The European Constitution consists of four parts. Besides, European values are defined as, "human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law and respect for human rights".

In the preamble of the Constitution, no referral to Christianity is given place after long hot debates. In the preamble, _expression "inspired by the cultural, religious and humanitarian heritage of Europe" is included.

With the qualified majority, the Constitution also applies regulation to suspend the membership of the states of they gravely violate the fundamental values of EU.

Term presidency will be ended with the Constitution. The European Council consisting of the leaders of the member states will elect the Council President with the qualified majority and for 2.5-year period. Foreign Minister will also be elected in a similar way. The new voting system had caused debates during the negotiations and the December summit of last year had ended with no conclusion. The system approved is built on the principal of double majority vote that is both member state and population votes.

Important decisions will be reached through "qualified majority". With this, at least 15 member states representing 65 percent of the block population are required to reconcile on the decision.

The European Constitution also fortifies the power of European Parliament (EP). Number of common legislative fields that the EP will be involved with the member states is almost doubled. Number of parliamentarian members is limited to 750. None of the states will have more than 96 seats and less than six.

The studies on European Constitution have started under the leadership of former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing in February 28, 2002. Turkey played an active role in shaping up many articles despite it joined the European Convention, which the Constitutional discussions took place, as an observer.