2004 EU summit in Brussels

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The 2004 EU Summit took place from June 17-18, 2004 in Brussels , Belgium . The Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern chaired the meeting .

Topics and participants

The heads of state and government met again to negotiate a common European constitution . Agreements had been reached in advance on well over 90 percent of the draft constitution, but no agreement could be reached on a few points at a first meeting in December 2003. After further negotiations, the document was finally adopted as the "Constitution for Europe". The declared aim of the constitution was the division of tasks between the European Union and its member states as well as the role and powers of the European institutions.

In addition, the roughly 350-page long constitutional treaty should summarize the existing European treaties . The first part of the constitution contained the most important goals, the fundamental rights , the distribution of powers as well as the legal instruments and the role of the institutions. The second part comprised the Charter of Fundamental Rights . In the third part, the EU policy areas and decision-making procedures were explained, which were previously the subject of the Treaty establishing the European Community . The provisions of the economic constitution were also mentioned, starting with the four fundamental freedoms of the EU internal market : the free movement of citizens, goods, capital and services were listed in this part. Possibilities for further changes to the contract were listed in the fourth part. The objective of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing , President of the persons entrusted with proposals for the constitutional convention simply to formulate the constitution and structure, has not been reached.

The meeting mainly dealt with disagreements in questions of finding a majority and integration policy. The British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka had defused the draft convention on the question of majority decisions at European level in the course of the negotiations. The "double majority" system finally agreed upon promised greater capacity to act, but fell short of the Convention's proposal. MEPs Klaus Hänsch ( SPD ) and Elmar Brok ( CDU ), who represented the European Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference, declared after the negotiations that more than 90 percent of the Convention's reform proposals had been taken into account in the constitution. Above all, they should have been measured against the demands that were made to the Convention at the end of 2001, according to which Europe should become more transparent, more capable of acting and more democratic for its citizens.

The negotiations eventually led to the first European constitution.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The long road to an EU constitution. Chronology. spiegel.de, October 29, 2004, accessed on May 16, 2016 .
  2. ↑ a b An uncertain contract. A constitution for Europe. faz.net, June 21, 2016, accessed May 16, 2016 .
  3. ↑ a b A new constitution with an uncertain future. EU constitution. faz.net, October 29, 2004, accessed May 16, 2016 .
  4. ↑ More economic policy coordination. EU constitution. faz.net, June 8, 2004, accessed May 16, 2016 .
  5. ↑ The EU constitutional process. Chronology. sueddeutsche.de, December 6, 2008, accessed on May 16, 2016 .