There are signs of movement in the Netherlands - one of the two countries that rejected the Constitutional Treaty on reforming the European Union.

The Dutch government has submitted a paper to its parliament on how it sees the way forward. This document recognises that, far from being
overwhelmingly rejected, "there were 18 Member States that did embrace the treaty" and that "there is a need for a new discussion". It says that "the Netherlands is playing an active and constructive role in this discussion."

What is it that the Dutch government envisages coming out of these discussions? Not the current Constitutional Treaty without any changes, as it states quite clearly that "the previous government withdrew the Bill for ratifying the Constitutional Treaty and this government will not be re-submitting it".

Instead, it considers that a new Treaty should be negotiated, as "the Union manifestly cannot confront its current policy challenges on the basis of the Treaty of Nice". But this new treaty should retain much of the content of the Constitutional Treaty.

The government's paper says that "it is almost self-evident that certain elements of the Constitutional Treaty will be drawn on. One reason for this is that many Member States have already ratified the text. Furthermore, as discussions in the House have revealed many times, parts of the Constitutional Treaty will be useful in fulfilling the Netherlands desire to strengthen democracy and the EU's capacity for decisive action. In fact, even the Treaty's opponents in Parliament and society at large have conceded that certain proposals are clear improvements on the existing treaties."

In particular, according to the Dutch European Affairs Minister who I met yesterday, the institutional package contained in the Constitutional Treaty is worth retaining.

All this suggests that the Dutch problem is more one of presentation that the reality of the Constitutional Treaty. Although the government's coalition agreement states that they want a new Treaty that is "convincingly different from the previously rejected Constitutional Treaty in terms of its content, size and name", the government's paper goes on to list key issues that are, in fact, either cosmetic or already dealt with by the Constitutional Treaty.

The cosmetic changes are:
* to change the name, dropping the word "constitution", which changes nothing in law;
* to have a single article cross-referencing to the Charter of Rights, instead of incorporating it in full as Part II of the treaty;
* to drop the "symbols" of the Union like the flag and anthem, which, of course already exist and don't really need a reference in the treaty;
* to make it a treaty amending the pre-existing treaties, abandoning the codification of all the European treaties into a single text - again
no legal difference other than to make things more complicated (to the benefit of lawyers!);
* for new Treaty provisions to "spell out the rules and criteria for further enlargement" - again, these criteria exist, so spelling them out in the treaty is essentially a matter of increasing their visibility.

The other set of measures advocated is simply to give more emphasis to points that are anyway already in the Constitutional Treaty:
* the principle of subsidiarity, with a strengthening of national parliaments to assess measures for subsidiarity.
* the principle of the conferral of powers ie that the Union will only exercise those powers that the Member States have jointly decided to delegate to it
* an emphasis that some policy areas "are pre-eminently suited to a chiefly national approach including pensions, social security, fiscal matters, culture and health care" - does the Constitutional Treaty in any way suggest otherwise?
* support for new treaty provisions on cross-border environmental problems.

All these points are already in the Constitutional Treaty.

Now, I don't want to underestimate the importance of cosmetic changes (if only to diminish the chances of mis-understandings and the opportunities for wilfull distortions). Nor do I underestimate the need to draw more attention to things that are in the treaty. But I note that the solution the Dutch government wants would leave intact almost all the key reforms contained in the Constitutional Treaty.

EUX.tv has more on the Netherlands and the Constitutional Treaty here