Further confirmation that the EU Constitution is re-born and of mounting US interest

The following is the conclusion of yesterday's 'Walker's World' issued by UPI and linked here In an editorial, the Times of London argued that "in terms of the sovereign powers transferred to Brussels, of expanded roles for the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament, of the potentially intrusive and legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights, and of expanded majority voting in the EU Council, the 'reform treaty' is indeed the old constitution revisited." European constitutional scholars agree. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Professor Roland Vaubel of the University of Mannheim concluded last week, "The Reform Treaty is nothing but the old draft in a new guise to avoid another round of referendums. And as a result, the EU's democratic deficit is not narrowing but widening." In such a context, it will not be easy for Britain's new prime minister to avoid a referendum, and the row looks likely to overshadow British political life and the climate in which Brown hopes to secure his own mandate with a new general election. If there is one ray of light for Brown in this grim picture, it comes from France, where new President Nicolas Sarkozy is also keen to avoid another referendum and have the Treaty ratified by a vote in Parliament. But under French law, France will first have to amend its own national Constitution to do so, and that requires a majority vote of both the National Assembly, where Sarkozy holds a comfortable majority, and the Senate, where he does not. The Socialist opposition, with support from other parties, can block such a constitutional change almost indefinitely, and given their antipathy to Sarkozy, that looks very likely indeed.