"Every
provision of the Constitutional Treaty, apart from the flags, mottos
and anthems, is to be found in the Reform Treaty. We think that they
are fundamentally the same, and the Government have not produced a
table to contradict our position."
Michael
Connarty MP (Labour), chairman of the European
Scrutiny Committee - debate
in Parliament, 10 December 2007
"I
have taken on the work of comparing the draft of the new Treaty of
Lisbon with the Constitution on the 'nine essential points' published
on this blog.To
my surprise, and, to tell the truth, to my great satisfaction, these
nine points reappear word for word in the new project. Not a comma
has changed! The only thing is that you have to really look for them
because they are dispersed in the texts the new Treaty refers to,
namely the Treaties of Rome and Maastricht. The only difference is
that the qualified majority voting is put off until 1 November 2014,
while with the Constitution, it would have come into force straight
after ratification. I do not see the interest of this delay and I
think we could have done without it."
Valery
Giscard d’Estaing, former French president and
chief architect of the EU Constitution - VGE
blog, 23 November 2007
"Looking
at the content, the result is that the institutional proposals of
the constitutional treaty … are found complete in the Lisbon Treaty,
only in a different order and inserted in former treaties ... Above
all, it is to avoid having referendum thanks to the fact that the
articles are spread out and constitutional vocabulary has been removed"
Valery
Giscard d’Estaing, former French president and
chief architect of the EU Constitution - open
letter to Le Monde, 27 October 2007
"We
believe that the red lines will not be sustainable. Looking at the
legalities and use of the European Court of Justice, we believe these
will be challenged bit by bit and eventually the UK will be in a position
where all of the treaty will eventually apply to the UK. If they can't
get these things firmed up, we think they will leak like a sieve."
Michael Connarty MP
(Labour), chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee - BBC Radio
4, 9 October 2007
“Taken
as a whole, the Reform Treaty produces a general framework which is
substantially equivalent to the Constitutional Treaty… Even with the
‘opt-in’ provisions on police and judicial cooperation in criminal
matters, and the Protocol on the Charter, we are not convinced that
the same conclusion does not apply to the position of the UK.”
House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee
report, 9 October 2007
“For
Austria it was important to keep the essence, to keep the institutional
side of it intact, and also to keep the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This is the essence, and we were able to safeguard that.”
Ursula
Plassnik,
Autrian Foreign Minister - BBC 10 o'clock news, 7 September 2007
"Sovereignty
is to be transferred in the most fundamental way. Under the treaty
the EU will assume a legal personality. As a consequence it will be
the EU, and not member states, that will sign international agreements
on foreign policy, defence, crime and judicial matters. The EU will
begin to take on the appearance of a separate country in all but name."
Frank
Field MP
(Labour), former welfare reform minister - article in the Daily
Telegraph, 27 July 2007
"Largely
the main institutional arrangements, the main constitutional arrangements,
such as giving the union a single legal personality so that it can
enter into treaties itself - that's all still there."
Gisela Stuart MP
(Labour), former member of the Convention that drew up the EU Constitution
- interview, World
at One BBC Radio 4 - 26 July 2007
"After
the difficult European Council negotiations... I had the feeling that
the voice of the European Parliament had been heard and that the essentials
had been saved, even if we had to give up calling it 'a European Constitution'
... "
Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European
Parliament - Letter
to Valery Giscard d'Estaing, 17 July 2007
"The
revised European constitutional treaty would be bad for business,
and bad for Britain ... Most of the EU leaders have admitted, or even
boasted, that the new treaty is the same as the original constitution.
It would mean fundamental change in the relationship between the EU
and the UK."
Simon
Wolfson,
Chief Executive, Next plc and others - Letter, Financial
Times, 24 July 2007
"more
than 90 % of the terms appearing in the [new treaty] mandate come
from European Convention or the IGC of 2004 ... This quick analysis
of the text shows that the innovations relate primarily to the presentation
... "
Valery
Giscard d’Estaing, former French president and
chief architect of the EU Constitution - speech
to MEPs, 17 July 2007
"What
was difficult to understand will be from now on impossible to understand,
but the substance will have been preserved. However it is this substance
which will give the best chance to the continuing ever closer union
of Europe."
Valery
Giscard d’Estaing, former French president and
chief architect of the EU Constitution - speech
to MEPs, 17 July 2007
"The
Taoiseach and I have had a meeting this morning. We have discussed
the European constitution and how that
can move forward over the next few months."
Gordon Brown MP,
Prime Minister - Press
Conference, 16 July 2007
"Sometimes
I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation of empire.
We have the dimension of empire."
Jose Manuel Barroso,
president of the European Commission - EUobserver, 10 July
2007
"Of
course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent
to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?"
Jean-Claude Juncker,
Prime Minister of Luxembourg - Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2007
“The
fundamentals of the Constitution have been maintained in large part…
We have renounced everything that makes people think of a state, like
the flag and the national anthem.”
Angela Merkel,
German Chancellor - El Pais, 24 June 2007
"The
substance of the constitution has been retained".
Hans-Gert Poettering,
president of the European Parliament - speaking to the Council of
Europe, Strasbourg, 26 June 2007
“The
text consists, in effect, of a revival of a large part of the substance
of the Constitutional Treaty”.
Valery Giscard d’Estaing,
former French president and chief architect of the EU Constitution
- personal blog, 26 June 2007
“All
the earlier proposals will be in the new text, but will be hidden
and disguised in some way”.
Valery Giscard d’Estaing,
former French president and chief architect of the EU Constitution
- EuroMoney
seminar, June 2007
“The
adoption of the substance of the European Constitution under a new
name is a serious violation of democratic principles.”
Jean-Luc Melenchon,
French Senator and one of the main leaders of the 'No' campaign within
the Socialist Party - Le Monde,
26 June 2007
"The
substance of the Constitutional Treaty has been preserved".
Jo Leinen MEP
- head of the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee
- Agence Europe, 26 June 2007
"A
great part of the content of the European Constitution is captured
in the new treaties”
Jose Zapatero,
Spanish Prime Minister - El
Pais, 23 June 2007
“The
good thing is...that all the symbolic elements are gone, and that
which really matters – the core – is left.”
Anders Fogh Rasmussen,
Danish Prime Minister - Jyllands-Posten, 25 June 2007
“There’s
nothing from the original institutional package that has been changed”
Astrid Thors,
Finnish
Europe Minister - TV-Nytt, 23
June 2007
“They
haven't changed the substance - 90 per cent of it is still there."
Bertie Ahern,
Irish Prime Minister - Irish Independent, 24 June 2007
and
on the change
of name for the EU Foreign Minister ...
"It's
the original job as proposed but they just put on this long title
- High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and
also vice President of the Commission. It's the same job […] it's
still going to be the same position."
Bertie Ahern,
Irish Prime Minister - Irish Independent, 24 June 2007
“Despite
all the compromises, the substance of the draft EU Constitution has
been safeguarded.”
Elmar Brok MEP,
Chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee -
Euractiv, 25 June 2007
"The
referendum which the Spanish approved the Constitution has been decisive,
and 99% of its content has survived.”
Diego Lopez Garrido,
parliamentary spokesman for the Spanish Socialist party - El Pais,
25 June 2007
"As
long as we have more or less a European Prime Minister and a European
Foreign Minister then we can give them any title"
Romano Prodi, Italian Prime Minister
- speech in Lisbon, 2 May 2007
“It’s
essentially the same proposal as the old Constitution.”
Margot Wallstrom,
EU Communications Commissioner - Svenska Dagbladet, 26 June
2007
