JANUARY - JUNE 2005 -- CALENDAR TO

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000278

SIPDIS

STATE ALSO FOR EUR/WE, DRL/IL AND INR/EUC
DOL FOR ILAB

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV SOCI PREL FR
SUBJECT: JANUARY - JUNE 2005 -- CALENDAR TO
REFERENDUM ON PROPOSED EU CONSTITUTION

REF: PARIS 184

SUMMARY
--------------

1. On January 3 the Council of Ministers
approved the text of a package of amendments to
the French Constitution that the Parliament
will be considering in the coming months.
These amendments to the French Constitution
(reftel) will harmonize it with the proposed EU
Constitution. The proposed EU Constitution
will be put to French voters in a referendum
next June. The National Assembly will consider
the required amendments to the French
Constitution January 25 - 27. The Senate will
consider them in late February. In March or
early April both houses will meet in joint
session for the final step, passage of the
amendments by a three-fifths majority. Once
the French Constitution has been revised so
that it is fully consistent with the proposed
EU Constitution, only then will the date for
the referendum be set (most likely Sunday, June
5 or Sunday June 12). President Chirac called
for this referendum in his National Day address
on July 14, 2004. END SUMMARY.

BACKGROUND
--------------

2. On July 14, 2004 President Chirac called
for a national referendum to ratify the
proposed EU Constitution. In France, the
ratification process began on November 19, 2004
when the Constitutional Council pointed out
inconsistencies between the French Constitution
and the proposed EU Constitution, and called
for appropriate amendment of the French
Constitution. This is the fourth such
amendment of the French Constitution pursuant
to an EU treaty. Prior iterations of this
process took place in connection with the
Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the Amsterdam Treaty
in 1996 and the Treaty of Nice in 2000.

JUSTICE MINISTRY PROPOSES AMENDMENTS
--------------

3. A proposed text (reftel) of these
amendments was drafted by the Ministry of
Justice and, as is done with all draft laws,
forwarded to the Council of State for review.
The Council of State, acting in its capacity as
the government's legal counsel, received the
Justice Ministry's draft law on December 8,
2004, and quickly judged it fully consistent
with all applicable law and principle
(specifically, the provisions of the current
(1958) Constitution of the Fifth Republic and
the preamble to the 1946 Constitution of the
Fourth Republic and the 1789 Declaration of
Rights).

CONSIDERATION BY THE PARLIAMENT
--------------

4. The Law Committee of the National Assembly
and the Foreign Affairs Committee of the
National Assembly will be considering and
possibly amending the draft legislation January
11 - 19. The National Assembly is scheduled to
debate and vote on the amended text January 25
- 27. The text approved by the Assembly will
then be forwarded to the Senate, which should
consider it in the latter part of February. As
with any other law, both the National Assembly
and the Senate must pass it in identical
versions.

"CONGRESS" IN VERSAILLES
--------------

5. An additional step is required for laws
amending the Constitution: the National
Assembly and Senate, meeting as a single body,
must vote again on the Constitutional
amendments and pass them by a three-fifths
majority. The "Congress" of the National
Assembly and Senate for this purpose will take
place in Versailles, most likely in late March
or early April.

SETTING THE DATE FOR THE REFERENDUM
--------------

6. The most likely dates for the national
referendum on the proposed EU Constitution are
Sunday, June 5 or Sunday, June 12. President
Chirac, in the French president's traditional
New Year's messages, stressed the importance to
France and to continued European integration of
adopting the Constitution, but specified only
that the referendum would take place "before
summer." During the week of January 11 - 14,
President Chirac met with the leaders of the
major political parties to begin discussing how
the referendum should be organized and how the
question to be presented to voters in the
referendum should be framed. In addition,
President Chirac will also lobby the party
leaders, seeking their agreement to refrain
from using the referendum on the proposed EU
Constitution as a lightening rod for public
feeling on unrelated questions, such as whether
or not Turkey should enter the EU.

VOTER INFORMATION FOR 41 MILLION
--------------

7. Among the referendum "modalities" is the
matter of voter documentation. Every
registered voter is to receive by mail a
package that includes the full text of the
proposed Constitution, along with background
and explanatory materials. As of the most
recent national elections in France (the March
2004 elections for members of the 24 Regional
Councils),there were 40,973,784 registered
voters. The logistics of such a massive voter
information campaign are part of the reason for
the reluctance to lock in a date for the
referendum. Indeed, in July 2004, in the
speech in which he called for the referendum,
President Chirac indicated that the
preparations required for the referendum could
only be in place by "the second half of 2005."
Moving the date up to June telescopes the time
available for adequately preparing the
logistical aspects of the referendum, and duly
completing the constitutional amendment aspects
of it. It also reduces the time opponents of
the proposed Constitution will have to try and
sway public opinion on the question, and, in
the highly centralized French system, provides
the executive that much more leeway for shaping
every detail of the consultation.

LEACH