*Note the last paragraph, in particular:

February 20, 2008
The EU Reform Treaty: A Threat to the Transatlantic Alliance
by Sally McNamara
Backgrounder #2109

After French President Nicolas Sarkozy's and GerÂ*man Chancellor Angela Merkel's successful visits to Washington, D.C., U.S. policymakers might be forÂ*given for thinking that U.S. strategic interests are now in safe hands in continental Europe. However, this optimism discounts the enormous threat posed by the Reform Treaty, which was signed in Lisbon on December 13 and is little more than the European Constitution with a cosmetic makeover.

Under Chancellor Merkel's personal leadership, the European Union breathed life back into the rejected European Constitution, recasting it as the Reform Treaty.[1] It still contains the building blocks of a United States of Europe and will shift power from the member states of the EU to Brussels in critÂ*ical areas of policymaking, including defense, secuÂ*rity, and energy--areas in which the United States finds more traction on a bilateral basis. The treaty is a blueprint for restricting the sovereign right of EU member states to determine their own foreign poliÂ*cies, and it poses a unique threat to the British- American Special Relationship.

Above all, the treaty underscores the EU's ambiÂ*tions to become a global power and challenge AmeriÂ*can leadership on the world stage.

Deja Vu: The EU Constitution by Another Name

The substance of the constitution is preserved. That is a fact.

--German Chancellor Angela Merkel[2]

In July 2003, the draft Constitutional Treaty was presented to EU member states on the basis that it provided for "more democracy, transparency and efficiency in the European Union."[3] Recognizing that the document provided for nothing of the kind, voters in France and Holland rejected it in popular referenda, plunging the EU into an extended period of navel-gazing.

Yet rather than concede the document's fundaÂ*mental flaws, the German Presidency of the EuroÂ*pean Union produced a mandate that essentially returned the same document for ratification by those member states that had not approved (or had rejected) the draft Constitutional Treaty.[4] The resulting Reform Treaty, which EU heads of state signed in December, still transfers substantial powÂ*ers from member states to Brussels.[5]

In the Words of EU Elites. Although the French and Dutch rejections of the EU Constitution in 2005 could not have been more emphatic, EU elites seem unable to conceal their delight at bringing the constitution back under a new name. According to Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, "The substance of what was agreed in 2004 has been retained.... What is gone is the term 'constitution.'"[6] Leading Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and former Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Elmar Brok commented, "Despite all the comproÂ*mises, the substance of the draft EU Constitution has been safeguarded."[7] Spanish Prime Minister José Zapatero stated, "We have not let a single subÂ*stantial point of the constitutional treaty go."[8]

Even the drafter of the constitution, Valery GisÂ*card d'Estaing, predicted that cosmetic changes would be made and that "public opinion will be led to adopt, without knowing it, the proposals that we dare not present to them directly."[9] Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht observed, "The European Constitution wanted to be readable. This treaty had the intention to be indecipherable and it certainly has succeeded in that."[10]

Article can be read in its entirety at:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/bg2109.cfm