UK shelves EU constitution ‘for the moment’

The UK’s foreign secretary Jack Straw has said that there is currently “no point” in pushing ahead with British ratification of the EU constitution.

In a widely expected announcement, Straw said the recent double no votes in France and the Netherlands had raised doubts over whether the constitution could now realistically be implemented across the EU.

“It is now for European leaders to reach a conclusion on how to deal with this situation,” he told MPs on Monday

Choosing his words carefully, Straw said the UK government could re-start the British ratification process if it was required.

“We reserve the right to bring back the bill providing for a UK referendum should circumstances change,” said Straw.

“But we see no point in proceeding at this moment.”

The announcement will come as bad news for French and German hopes to shore up continued ratification of the troubled treaty.

French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met in Berlin over the weekend in a show of Franco-German unity.

The two leaders called on the UK not to shelve its referendum plans, and insisted that one country should not be able to decide the fate of the treaty, and that each of the 25 EU member states must be given the opportunity to “express itself in turn.”

However, the impact of the double no is producing shockwaves across the EU that may be unstoppable.

Support for the constitution in Denmark and the Czech Republic has fallen sharply since the French and Dutch votes, indicating that both countries would likely also reject the treaty.

And Luxembourg, the current EU Presidency holders are fearful on a ‘non’ domino effect in their referendum on July 10. 

The no camp in the Grand Duchy say support is rising, and the situation prompted a statement from prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker saying that he would resign if voters turned down the treaty.

Although Germany has ratified the constitution by parliamentary vote, a weekend poll by the widely read German daily Bild, showed that almost 97 per cent of its readers would vote against the treaty if allowed.

Chirac and Schroeder’s weekend attempt to bolster support for continuing the ratification process, was dismissed by UK daily the Times as a meeting between a “lame duck” and a “dead duck”.

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