LONDON -- Like a vampire rising from the grave, the issue of a new constitution for the European Union, which many people had assumed was dead and buried, has returned to haunt the corridors of power and government in the capitals of Europe.
Rejected last year by large majorities by the people of France and the Netherlands, the general consensus was that the whole constitution project was finished and could not be resurrected. But this overlooked the continuing desire of many European leaders to draw up a new rule book for the enlarged EU of 25 member states that has now come into being, with the prospect of membership increasing next year to 27 with the accession of Bulgaria and Romania -- if all goes smoothly (which it may not) -- and more still after that.
The core problem, which always causes so much grief when the issue is raised and has undermined all earlier attempts at constitution-making, is that there is bitter disagreement about the direction in which the proposed constitution should lead Europe. Is it toward a single state, with its own legal personality, its own foreign policy and all encased in its own body of law?