EU constitution: Dealing with rights

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 fourth of his series he looks at the Charter of Fundamental Rights, what the charter envisages and how the UK government is trying to control it.

The British are worried about the charter and its wide-ranging rights

We have been trying this week to hack through the thickets surrounding the proposed European Union constitution - the text which the 25 member states are hoping to agree on by the middle of next month.

For the UK, one of the most sensitive areas has been part two of the Constitution - the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

It was a charter, you may remember, that was dismissed by a Europe minister as having the legal clout of the Beano.

The British then fought tooth and nail to have it excluded from the constitution - a fight which they lost.

The charter is the most readable part of the constitution. Its text is uplifting. That, to some, is precisely the problem.

The charter is the most readable part of the constitution. Its text is uplifting. That, to some, is precisely the problem

It establishes wide-ranging rights which, they fear, could smash very large holes through UK law.

For decades, the UK has been subject to the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Six years ago, the government formally incorporated the convention into UK law.

Many of those basic tenets - the right to life, the right to privacy, the right to marry - are repeated in the charter.

What is different though are the social provisions: the right to strike, the right to safe and dignified working conditions, the right to social and housing assistance.

The UK's Confederation of British Industry, among others, has warned of British industrial relations being "destabilised".

Caveats

There are two provisos. One is that the charter refers just to European Union law and European Union institutions.

The other is what the UK government calls "helpful technical explanations" - which it believes underline that the charter will have no impact on domestic law, when it comes to non-European Union business.

But while one side of the parcel may look neatly trimmed, the other side looks rather more loose.

No-one is quite sure yet how much legal weight those "helpful technical explanations" carry.

It will be something that UK officials will be scrutinising very, very carefully over the next few weeks.

Legal confusion

Nor is there always a precise delineation between national law and European Union law. The union shares power with member states on a whole range of issues. Half of UK law these days comes from the EU.

In a way, the debate over the charter mirrors one of the problems for the UK government over the whole constitution.

Much of the language is simple, and apparently far-reaching. The government would have preferred a drier, more technocratic document.

It can still claim that the precise legal caveats are there.

But in the heat of a referendum campaign, those are not necessarily the words that will sing.

Which is why on Friday, we will look at what happens if the UK decides not to ratify this constitution.

Part Three: Making sense of Europe

Part Two: Power struggles

Part One: Blueprint for superstate?