Veteran EU leader backs public debate on new treaty

Luxembourg premier Jean-Claude Juncker has admitted that Europe's new reform treaty will mean “transfers of sovereignty” from member states.

In an interview with Belgian newspaper Le Soir, the veteran EU leader said he supported public debate on the treaty.

“I am astonished at those who are afraid of the people: one can always explain that what is in the interest of Europe is in the interests of our countries,” said Juncker, leader of the EU’s 13 single currency members.

“Britain is different. Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?”

Juncker, a supporter of a United States of Europe, described the 23 June deal struck at the EU summit as an “objective success” for friends of the EU constitution.

“There is a single legal personality for the EU, the primacy of European law, a new architecture for foreign and security policy, there is an enormous extension in the fields of the EU’s powers, there is Charter of Fundamental Rights,” he said, listing elements of the old constitution in the proposed treaty.

His remarks come as new UK premier Gordon Brown faced rising calls for a referendum on the treaty.

Meanwhile, non-attached MEP Bernard Wojciechowski says that key elements in the “old” constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005 have been given a “second life.”

The Polish deputy, a member of parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, said, “The EU will have a legal personality and be represented abroad by its foreign minister.

“A president, not elected by the people, will preside over the continent for two and a half years.

“There was no war. Many of us, however, feel defeated.”

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