The Spectator is wrong to call for an EU referendum

‘If someone in the UK is calling for a referendum, that is not because the text we have in front of us is a Constitution.’ Not my words. They belong to Giuliano Amato, vice chairman of the Convention that drafted the old Constitutional Treaty.

Last week in the Spectator the government was accused of being dishonest regarding the European Reform Treaty (‘Vote for honesty’, 15 September). We are not.

We did indeed promise a referendum on the old Constitutional Treaty. But the Reform Treaty is not a Constitution. In June, all 27 leaders of the Member States of the European Union took the same view, declaring ‘the Constitutional concept has been abandoned’. Nine EU Member States either held referenda on the old Constitutional Treaty or were planning to do so. But only Ireland intends to hold a referendum on the Reform Treaty — because it is required to do so on any EU Treaty.

Your article claimed that ‘Continental politicians declare with embarrassing unanimity that the constitution is very much alive’, but on 17 September José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, made crystal clear that, ‘the Treaty, including the hard fought UK red lines, is not the Constitution’.

Some may discount the significance of the removal of the EU flag and anthem and title of Foreign Minister, but these are another clear sign that the UK’s vision of a Europe of sovereign states has won out. Eurosceptics ought to be celebrating the fact that the mythical ‘European super-state’ is off the table — if they looked around the rest of Europe, they would find that it is the federalist camp that has been disappointed. Look at the words of Elmar Brock, the representative of the European Parliament at the Treaty negotiations.