Economic aspects of the EU Constitution

In December 2001 in Laeken, the European Council called for a "Convention on the Future of Europe". The Convention was given the task of examining the EU treaties with a view to simplification and reorganisation and of preparing a European constitution. The Constitution will prepare the EU for the 21st century, especially with a view to the needs of the many new EU member states. In the opinion of Prof. Bruno Frey, Institute for Empirical Economic Research at the University of Zurich, the constitution drafts contain very few innovative elements. The national states are still at the centre. "A future-oriented European constitution should have sufficient flexibility for the creation of a new state order and should not simply cement the existing units". Prof. Charles. B. Blankart, Humboldt University in Berlin, and Prof. Dennis C. Mueller, University of Vienna, characterise "the existing decision-making structures with the Council and the Parliament as competing bodies" as unclear and contradictory. The initially necessary decisions in the direction of a federation of states or a federal state can hardly be expected with the composition of the Convention. Klaus Hänisch, Member of the European Parliament as well as member of the Convention and head of the working groups "Economic Governance", emphasises that the Convention has the task of making the Union more democratic, more transparent and more efficient. Its goal is not to redefine or change the policies of the Union.