Anthony Barnett (London, OK): A press release from OpenEurope makes a very clear and simple case which if true will be damaging for the government as it suggests that the entire wording of the EU Treaty has been constructed in bad faith to avoid democratic accountability. It says:
"The official version of the treaty is almost unreadable as it takes the form of a series of amendments to the existing treaties, without reproducing the existing text which they will alter. In other words, the new version contains only the “active ingredients” – the changes which were proposed by the original Constitution. This is intended to make it unreadable.
Open Europe is now publishing a consolidated text which shows how it would change the treaties. We also reproduce the text of the original version of the original Constitution alongside this. As you can see, the new treaty alters the existing treaties to bring them into line with the rejected European Constitution.
Some opponents of a referendum have argued that the “new” treaty is shorter than the old Constitution and so therefore cannot be substantively the same thing. This is a dishonest argument.
Once it is turned back into a consolidated text it becomes obvious that the “new” treaty essentially edits the existing treaties in such a way as to make them almost identical to the rejected Constitution. In fact the final product is the same length as the original version of the Constitution:
* The current treaties are approximately 54,000 words long
* The original EU Constitution was 63,000 words long
* The new version is also 63,000 words long.
The comparative text can be downloaded here (opens as pdf)
The guide to the constitutional treaty can be downloaded here (opens as pdf) "
