50 Years after the Treaty of Rome: A new (constitutional) treaty by 2009, getting the citizens and youth involved, and towards a more democratic European Union?

27 March 2007

Last weekend (24-15 March) it was exactly 50 years ago that the Treaty of Rome was signed. While national leaders of the European Union members countries celebrated this in Berlin (see: http://europa.eu/50/), many other events were organised at the same time. One of these was the Conference on the Future of Europe, aimed at more involvement of citizens, initiated by different organisations in combination with individual members of national parliaments; another was the first EU Youth Summit, held in Rome.

The most important outcome of the weekend on official EU-level was the Berlin Declaration, in which German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that member countries should agree on a new treaty by the end of 2007; this treaty should be ratified before the next elections of the European Parliament in 2009. Political leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic opposed this tight time-schedule, while the change of president and prime minister in respectively France and the United Kingdom might cause problems in these two countries. Another issue related to this is the question if there should be a referendum in all countries about this new treaty. Gordon Brown, most likely the next prime minister of the UK, has already made clear that he cannot accept such a referendum. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, on the other hand, proposed in an interview with the Deutsche Presse Agentur for a European-wide referendum about the new treaty, held parallel with the European Parliament elections of 2009 (for more information see the article at euro-topics.net, or the original interview in German at Perlentaucher.de).

During the same weekend in the same city another voice could be heard at the Conference on the Future of Europe – Europe: Not Without the People! The key issues of this conference were that political leaders needed to respect the French and Dutch ‘no’ with regard to the European Constitution, and that citizens need to get involved in the European Union. An alternative Berlin Declaration was drafted which included these issues and called for a more democratic European Union.

A third event that was organised as the result of 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome was the first EU Youth Summit in Rome. It is interesting to see what the youth of today is thinking, since they are the European citizens of the future. The outcome of the discussion with 200 young participants representing all 27 member countries is, as could be expected, quite progressive. They call for a stronger voice for young people, a stronger European Parliament and a more democratic European Union.

Suzanne Jansen – Dutch Centre for Political Participation (IPP)