congress rejects constitution
WORKERS, JUNE 2003 ISSUE
The ninth Congress for Democracy met on Friday 16 May 2003 at Church House, Westminster — and either as a consequence or as a coincidence it took place against a rising tide of concern about the draft European constitution.
Out of it emerged a clear statement on the threats implicit in the proposed constitution, and further backing for the groundswell in the country calling for a referendum on this key issue.
The Congress — representing a broad swathe of anti-EU feeling in Britain — resolved that “the draft Constitutional Treaty presently being formulated by the Convention on the Future of Europe would take major and irreversible steps to convert the EU into a fully fledged State and would yet further subordinate the nations of Europe to EU institutions and powers.”
Its resolution went on to say that the treaty “would yet further diminish the democratic control by and accountability of EU institutions to the peoples of Europe while vastly reducing the powers of national parliaments”.
The Congress resolved that each nation should decide its own constitution, taxation, defence, foreign affairs, jurisprudence, police and electoral policy. This will involve retrieving powers already granted to the European Union and rejecting the legal process by which powers are expanded by the EU's unaccountable federal institutions and then retained forever.
» For more on the proposed Constitutional Treaty, see the feature article on p9 of June 2003 issue of Workers