 The Making of Europe's Constitution offers an accessible guide to what is at stake in this important debate. This pamphlet explains how the draft Consititution was formed and debated - and questions whether the model of European integration which has driven much of the historic development of the European Union is the right one for the new, enlarged Europe.
As Europe's political leaders seek to agree a new Constitution for Europe, Gisela Stuart's new Fabian pamphlet The Making of Europe's Constitution offers a unique and accessible insiders' guide to what is at stake in these important debates.
Gisela Stuart, Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston since 1997, served as one of two House of Commons representatives on the European Convention, chaired by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, which met for sixteen months and produced the Draft Constitution for Europe. Her pamphlet offers a candid account of how the Draft Constitution was formed – and argues that Europe's political elites must do more to ensure that they take the people with them if they want to avoid the dangers of political disengagement.
Thirty years after British membership, we have still not made European issues fully part of the fabric of our national democratic life. Gisela Stuart argues that we must change the way that we deal with Europe in Whitehall and Westminster and in our broader public debate if Britain is to contribute fully to the reshaping of European politics.
"Virtually no one who has not been paid to read the draft appears to have read it. I might never have got as far as "the symbols of the Union" had it not been for the promptings of a last-minute, eve-of-the-Brussels-conference intervention, a pamphlet called The Making of Europe's Constitution, by Gisela Stuart … a fascinating - and courageous - account of the way the constitution was painfully, sometimes secretively, argued, wangled and bullied into its draft form"
— Catherine Bennett, The Guardian
"Pro-Europeans are off the hook. The draft constitution of the Union was an unsatisfactory document, the product of an unsatisfactory and undemocratic process. It is a pity about the waster of time and mostly sincere labour that went into drawing it up, but it is on balance a good thing that it has been scrapped … Mr Blair should use this breathing space to take the advice of Gisela Stuart to reform the way Parliament scrutinises EU decision-making"
— Editorial, The Independent
"Labour MP Gisela Stuart is like the child who said fearlessly what none of the grown-ups could admit: "The Emperor has no clothes." What is more, Gisela Stuart is not a lone voice in this Government. Tony Blair cannot dismiss the woman he selected to balance the debate. Her views are echoed in Downing Street, the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office — and at the Treasury, where Chancellor Gordon Brown has been thunderous in his criticism"
— Trevor Kavanagh, The Sun
Buy The Making of Europe's Constitution for £6.95, plus £1 p+p. ISBN: 0716306093
Telephone the Fabian Society bookshop on 020 7227 4900, email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or send a cheque payable to 'the Fabian Society' to 11 Dartmouth Street, London, SW1H 9BN.
|
