While the focus of press attention in Europe has been on the fallout from the Austrian events and the launch of both the treaty-changing Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC) and of the extended enlargement process, quietly another new process has also been getting under way: the drafting of an EU charter of fundamental rights.
No mean task, you might say. And you would be right, not least because the job of writing the said document has been entrusted to an ad-hoc body of 62 members - 15 representatives of heads of state or government, one representative of the Commission, 16 MEPs, and, most unusually for an EU body, 30 members of national parliaments.
More than one old EU hand and diplomat has been heard recently to mutter the words "loose cannon" when asked what the likely outcome will be. The combination of 16 MEPs and 30 members of national parliaments makes for a potentially uncontrollable assembly, a challenge indeed for the chairman of the new body, the former German president, Mr Roman Herzog, on whose drafting and political skills much will depend.
The level of ambition of the 62, which includes such notables as ex-prime ministers Mr Jean-Luc Dehaene and Mr Franz Vranitsky, was signalled by their first decision: to call themselves a "convention". Now, whoever heard of a "convention" confining itself to a simple political declaration?
It all sounded like a good idea when heads of government debated it first at Cologne in June 1999. Here would be a way of assuring citizens that the EU represents more than economic interests. That impulse has been fuelled by the Austrian crisis, which has made all the more important a declaration of fundamental shared values.
Just as importantly, within the IGC a discussion has been opened up by the French Commissioner for Institutional Affairs, Mr Michel Barnier, on how to implement Clauses 6 and 7 of the treaty, which provide for the suspension of membership rights of states deemed to be in "serious and persistent" breach of basic EU values. He will be suggesting some kind of a monitoring system.
The Cologne Council set the convention the objective of drawing up a draft charter in advance of the December summit this year. On the basis of that draft, the leaders would then propose to the European Parliament and to the Commission that they should solemnly proclaim a European Charter of Fundamental Rights. Consideration of how the charter might be integrated into the treaties would be left until after this whole process was complete.
The problem is that such a discussion is central to the nature of the rights in question. Is the charter to be simply a political document which lists rights which citizens already enjoy under EU treaties or the European Convention on Human Rights? Or is it to give added value to EU citizenship by creating new, or enhancing existing rights?
In the latter case the question of treaty changes becomes much more complex. How are such new rights enforceable through the courts? A Parliamentary Assembly resolution of the Council of Europe last month unanimously warned against the creation of two different categories of rights, and hence two categories of citizens. It urged the EU to incorporate into its charter the rights protected by the European Convention on Human Rights and to accede to the convention.
Such a minimalist view will certainly be backed in the convention by the council's former secretary general, Mr Daniel Tarschys, who has been nominated as the Swedish representative, as well as a number of other delegates who have Council of Europe experience. Others will want to go further in trying to establish an independent EU human rights system.
The enumeration and scope of any social rights are also likely to prove controversial. The Government has nominated as its representative the former minister and commissioner, Mr Michael O'Kennedy. He will be backed up by the former legal adviser to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr Mahon Hayes. The Dail is represented by the former PD leader, Mr Des O'Malley and Fine Gael's Mr Bernard Durkan.
Dublin is very much of the minimalist school, hoping that the convention will limit itself to an unenforceable political declaration and will not require any Irish constitutional amendment. The TDs, however, both of whom have been taken aback by the volume of work the convention is likely to require of them, may take another view. All return to Brussels this Thursday for another working session.
Meanwhile, diplomatic sources suggest the convention's chairman, Mr Herzog, will try to steer the discussion towards a declaration which limits itself to the specific functions of the EU's own institutions, arguing that other rights are guaranteed by national judicial systems and underpinned by the European Convention on Human Rights.
