Tony Blair has confirmed that he will attend the up-and-coming conference on the European Constitution alone. Gordon Brown will not accompany him, as the government's position is agreed: seeking a "simplifying amending treaty". This is the same form of words as President Sarkozy of France has adopted as he tries to forge a new consensus prior to the conference on June 21st to the 22nd. He has been travelling around the European Union, drumming up support for this approach as a replacement for the Constitution. An amending treaty can be approved by the French Parliament whilst the Constitution would require another referendum.
However, we need to understand that the core of the simplified treaty: abandoning the title of the Constitution, dropping the formal legal identity of the Union and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and ensuring the vote meets Poland's expectations; will all dilute too far for the ratifying group. President Prodi of Italy has begun to set out the redlines of the Constitutionalists and has argued that a division may prove to be the way forward.
Mr Prodi – claiming to speak on behalf of 18 EU states which have largely ratified the original text – rejected "radical changes" to the foreseen institutional reforms. He listed the EU foreign minister, a lengthier presidency, the extension of qualified majority voting, the union's legal personality and the abolition of its three-pillar structure as elements which "must be preserved."
"If the compromise does not convince us, we will not sign it," he warned, clearly stating that a multi-speed Europe could bring about the long-sought breakthrough on the controversial issue.
"At this point, a vanguard of countries could…be the best way to proceed towards a more integrated union, on condition that door remains always open to those countries willing to join later," he said.
This may hopefully prove an impossible impasse. Poland, Great Britain, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and France all require a simplified treaty to stay withing Europe, a treaty that bears little relation to the existing ratified constitution. As Prodi has complained, we have learned the positions of the Eurosceptics. The lynchpin is Germany and the 'silent constitutionalists'. Will they drop the treaty in favour of unity or will they strike out in a historic division, leaving the nationalists in the slow lane? This will prove Sarkozy's first failure.