Airstrip One

The Second Draft (Part 2) - 7th February 2003

Article 4: Legal Personality<

The Union shall have legal personality.

This includes a separate international presence.

Article 5: Fundamental Rights

1. The Charter of Fundamental Rights shall be an integral part of the Constitution. It is set out in an annexe (unprinted here).

2. The Union may accede to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Accession to the Convention shall not affect the Union's competences as defined by this Constitution.

3. Fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States, shall constitute general principles of the Union's law.

This must signal the deathknell for fundamental rights embodied in Great Britain's and Ireland's systems of customary law since they are not 'common' to the Member states, only to the offshore islands.

Article 6: Non-Discrimination on Grounds of Nationality

In the field of application of this Constitution and without prejudice to any of its specific provisions, any discrimination on grounds of nationality will be prohibited.

Article 7: Citizenship of the Union

1. Every national of a Member State shall be a citizen of the Union. Citizenship of the Union shall be additional to national citizenship; it shall not replace it. All citizens of the Union, men and women, shall be equal before the law.

2. Citizens of the Union shall have the rights and be subject to the duties provided for in this Constitution. They shall have: the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States; the right to vote and to stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament and in municipal elections to their Member State of residence under the same conditions as nationals of that State; the right to enjoy, in the territory of a third country in which the Member State of which they are a national is not represented, the protection of the diplomatic and consular authorities of any Member State on the same conditions as nationals of that State; the right to petition the European Parliament, to apply to the Ombudsman, and to write to the institutions and the advisory bodies of the Union in any if the Union's languages and to obtain a reply in the same language [Bring the EU to a halt by petitioning in Finnish!]

3. These rights shall be exercised in accordance with the conditions and limits defined by this Constitution and by the measures adopted to give it effect.

This gives the EU precedence over the Member States in another area - citizenship. Notice the communitarian ring: rights are balanced by undefined duties like, one suspects, paying tax or conscription.