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Another has been reached in the drafting of the constitution.
It should be emphasised that a the drafting process is not over, someething a casual reading of a lot of the articles might lead you to believe. Euractiv explains:
"The Convention Praesidium presented the first complete draft of Part One of the EU Constitution on 26 May. The draft will be discussed for the first time by the 105 Convention members at their plenary session in Brussels on 30 and 31 May.
Background:
The European Convention, set up by the EU leaders in December 2001 to simplify the EU treaties, reform its institutions and bring the Union closer to its citizens, is now in its final phase during which it must find consensus on the draft Constitutional Treaty.
The Convention Praesidium presented the first outline of the future EU Constitution in October 2002. The Convention is due to propose its final draft to the Thessaloniki European Council on 20 June 2003. The EU would like to adopt the new Constitution in time to accommodate 10 new Member States in 2004."
Here is the draft (pdf file.) I'll go read the and hopefully, will have something intelligent to say later.
A lot of the text is a 'declaration of principles', vague but high-minded rhetoric type of stuff. Chris Bertram wonders if it will means anything or is just window dressing.
Theoretically, the European Court of Justice could use these provisions to enforce all kinds of policies, i.e. legislating from the bench. The South African constitution is full of the same things, and I don't know if anyone of the framers thought it meant something but their supreme court used it to force Mbeki to alter his (scandalous) AIDS policies. But that was a wholly different political situation, and I would say the likelihood of The European Court of Justice doing something like that is very small. Only in a vastly different context, in the far future could it be an issue. Afterall, the treaties the constitution will be replacing already had that kind of provisions.
Having positive rights (because that's what's it is) enshrined in a constitution is problematic, but it should be noted that the US, one of the countries with the least posive rights in their constitution still has the most interventionist, and sometimes acticvist, supreme court in the western world. It's all about the political situation.
Posted by David Weman at May 26, 2003 06:55 PM