THE EU CONSTITUTION: WHAT NEXT? OCTOBER 11TH 2005 THE LORD SLYNN OF HADLEY EUROPEAN LAW FOUNDATION

Abstract

the gradual development of European institutions has been marked by a long succession of crises, several of which looked at the time to threaten the future of the entire structure, though in retrospect they can be seen as the mechanisms which forced reluctant governments to accept change.  European integration first collapsed in 1953, with the French National Assembly’s rejection of the treaty to establish the European Defence Community.  It seemed close to collapse again, also as a result of French intransigence, in the Luxembourg ‘Empty Chair’ crisis of 1965-6.   At the depth of the budgetary crisis in 1981-3, American observers were writing off European integration as a failure – before Margaret Thatcher and Francois Mitterand came to a compromise in Fontainebleau in 1984.  The Danes voted down the Maastricht treaty, and the French only narrowly approved it.  So we should not be too rattled by the latest crisis; though we need to consider whether this crisis is more severe than its predecessors, and in what ways.