LONDON -- It could be the most momentous change in Britain's history or it could be a big yawn -- something that reaches only the most nerdlike minds of constitutional lawyers. Yes, it's the European Union Constitution, worked on for months by a 13-member presidium and a convention of 105 ministers and bureaucrats from all EU countries under the Gallic chairmanship of former French President Giscard D'Estaing.
The paradox here is that those who are dogmatically hostile to any increase in powers and identity for the EU are trumpeting the constitution as a most dramatic and life-changing event, requiring nothing less than intense national discussion followed by a national referendum. They are greeting it as an event similar in importance to the devising of the U.S. Constitution in the 1780s, and thus requiring similar serious constitutional conventions and papers.
Those who are in favor of this reordering of the EU -- to expand by next May from its current 15 states to 25 -- are presenting the draft constitution as a small administrative change, a tidying up of what in effect already exists. Supporters of the constitution condemn the hostile response as hysterical. Those who are against it condemn the supporters as sneaky, dishonest and undemocratic.