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PROCLAMATION OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL TREATY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

INTRODUCTION

The text that follows is designed to provide a short, clear and, it is hoped, inspiring answer to the questions: what is the European Union for, and – constitutionally speaking – what sort of animal is it?

Formally, the text is presented as a Proclamation of the Constitutional Treaty, which could be identified in the Amending Treaty as the event which, following ratification, will bring the new order into existence. This seems preferable to presentation as a Preamble to the Constitutional Treaty itself, which would be required to follow the traditional structure of a series of recitals constituting a single long sentence.

There is scope for adding other elements to the Proclamation, but it would be a pity to overload it. For the Proclamation to have an impact on public opinion, its content needs to be pithy and memorable.

PROCLAMATION

1. The process of European integration has brought together within the European Communities and the European Union ever more of the States of a Continent once divided by war, ideology and political oppression. Peaceful cooperation has replaced age-old rivalries.

2. Those achievements must be consolidated and taken forward, so as to ensure for all the peoples of the European Union:
continuing peace;
respect for the basic principles of democratic governance, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law;
social progress and sustainable prosperity;
high levels of internal and external security; and
in the international sphere, the ability more effectively to pursue common interests, while advancing the general well-being of humankind.

3. To those ends, the Member States are resolved to set the relations between their peoples on a new foundation laid down by the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union.

4. As constituted under the Treaty, the European Union has these defining features:
The Member States have chosen, in some measure, to exercise their sovereignties in common, through the institutions of the Union.
In so combining their sovereignties, for defined purposes and within defined limits, the Member States retain their national identities.
The Union has only those powers which have been conferred on it by the Member States. All powers which the Member States enjoy by virtue of their sovereignty, and which they have not conferred on the Union, remain theirs exclusively.
Decisions are to be taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen. The powers conferred on the Union are to be exercised in ways that encroach as little as possible on the powers of the Member States.

5. The European Union is thus a constitutional order of a new kind, uniting the peoples of the Member States, while preserving the diversity of political institutions and of cultural and linguistic traditions that enriches European civilisation.

Now, therefore, by this instrument, the Heads of State or Government of the Member States solemnly proclaim the Constitutional Treaty of the European Union.