LONDON -- So the great battle of the new European Constitution is over -- at least for the moment. The leaders of 25 member-states of the European Union have agreed and signed up to a massive document, entitled a Constitution, which for the first time gives the EU a legal personality and an authority in law over and above the individual nation states of Europe. The EU will now have a sort of federal state prosecutor, a foreign minister and a new kind of president.
The British leaders, who were always seen as the most likely source of objections to this giant new project, have declared themselves satisfied that the sovereign rights of member-states will remain protected from this higher authority in such crucial areas as foreign policy, defense, taxation, employment policy and the administration of criminal law. So it is smiles all round.
But how long will these smiles last? The doubts can be summed up in two words -- the lawyers and the people.