The group started with a discussion on the articles 24-33 of the draft constitution. On this section however, there were not that many comments since it deals with the clarification of the legislative procedures and legal acts if the Union, and we generally agree with the result of the Convention on this issue.



However, we suggest that the second point of article 25, “legislative acts” be removed, since it makes it possible for some legislation to be made only by the Council. We think that the Presidium here has in mind CFSP-ESDP issues and perhaps also tax issues, where the member states might want a veto. In the discussion, we pointed out that except of the fact that this is against the official JEF-policy, the development of the Union (especially within the defence area, but perhaps also in the area of tax policies once the monetary union is enlarged) makes the involvement and legitimisation of Union policies by the citizens of the EU even more important. Therefore, the involvement of the EP becomes increasingly important in these policy areas.



We started out the discussion on the revision procedures of the Constitution with comparing revision procedures of the constitutional law of our member states. We then discussed the advantages of the “convention-model” for revising parts of the European Constitution, since it symbolises the special character of the European Union at the same time as it is a good way of aggregating and integrating diverging ideas and opinions. In order to give the Convention a strong status, the group agreed that it should itself decide on the suitable ratification procedure, and on how long time it would need to produce the revision proposals. The proposal of the Convention should be seen as a “committing result”, i.e. no substantive changes could be made before the ratification process. The “convention-model” should be used for changes in the first and third parts of the Constitution. The second part of the Constitution should be changed by the Constitutional Assembly (see below) alone. The ratification could either be made by the EP and the Council, acting as a Constitutional Assembly, or through a European wide referendum. This implies some substantive changes to the article F of the Draft Constitution. The Constitutional Assembly should also be the body that, in consultation with the National Parliaments and the Commission, decides on a revision of the constitution. The call for a revision of the Constitution may be made by the European Parliament as well as by the Government of any Member State or the Commission as proposed in the Draft Constitution. The ratification of constitutional changes should be made by the Constitutional Assembly, which is constituted by the European Parliament and the Council, working in a co-decision procedure with special majority rules. For a change to pass, there has to be a qualified majority of ¾ of the votes of the EP, and the Council alike. The Council needs a double majority which would mean that 19 of 25 states representing 75% of the population voted in favour of the proposed change(es).





The working group also discussed the ratification after a European-wide referendum, article F of the Draft Constitution. This is a difficult issue, both politically and juridically. The group discussed how the ratification could proceed and what should be done if the Constitution would not be approved by all states. The group created a proposal, which meant that the Constitution would be considered to be approved if at least 50% of the states representing 50% of the population approved it. For the Constitution to come into affect though, a qualified majority of 75% would be needed. The group also discussed a concrete proposal of what to do if the majority would be between 50 and 75%, meaning that a new decision could be made at the earliest two years after the referendum. Meanwhile the Convention would be given a renewed mandate to sort out why a sufficient majority was not reached. In the case of a qualified but not complete majority there would be legal provisions for the objecting states to get a status of EES-members, but the doors would not be closed for the future accession of these states.