EU constitution: Power struggles

EU foreign ministers are meeting this week, in a fresh attempt to hammer out an agreement on a new constitution for Europe before a mid-June deadline.

All this week our Europe correspondent Tim Franks is looking at what the text means. In the second of his series he asks: is it a charter for centralisation of power?

The history of European Union treaties has been a history of losing national vetoes. This constitution is no different.

In around 30 areas, it is proposed that member states move from agreement through unanimity, to agreement by what is called "qualified majority voting", or QMV.

That would mean that it would take a group of countries, rather than just one, to block a measure.

On the great bulk of moves to QMV, the UK government has no problem.

Take asylum and immigration policy. The UK government believes that a removal of the veto will allow controls across Europe to be tightened.

But ministers do have big problems with parts of pan-European policy on tax, criminal procedural law, foreign policy, social security and the EU budget.

Controversial language

What there is not in this text is any repatriation of powers back to national parliaments.

It used to be argued that if you widened the European Union (by letting in 10 new countries, as we just have) then you would avoid deepening it.

But this constitution demands greater, not less integration, in the union of 25.

There is a guiding principle that action within the Union should be taken at the lowest possible level.

But in the constitution, national parliaments cannot force the European Commission - the bureaucracy at the heart of the Union - to withdraw a proposed EU law.

The Irish government wants to change the draft text

The Union itself does not, at first glance, get that much more power for itself.

It has exclusive sway in five areas, as before.

The same goes for the wider range of policies the Union shares with the member states.

Energy had been a new area, but was struck from the latest draft on Friday.

What is less clear, perhaps, is the balance of power.

Take the three wide ambitions from Article 14 - that the Union adopt measures to ensure co-ordination of the economic policies, employment policies and social policies of member states.

An utterly blameless re-statement, you might argue, of previous treaty language.

But why, in that case, are the Irish, who are currently chairing these talks, keen to change the draft text so that it says that it is member states, rather than the Union, that will do any co-ordinating of policy?

As we will see in the next of the series, it is the precise language, as well as the grand sweep of this constitution, that is proving so controversial.

Part One: Blueprint for superstate?