Those who still think the proposed Reform Treaty is a federalist plot would do well to read what the federalists themselves think about it!

Looking at the latest issue of the “New Federalist” magazine, I see that they say:

“The results of the spring Eurobarometer [opinion poll] indicate that two thirds of Europeans (66%) subscribe to the idea of the European Constitution. However, this didn’t prevent he EU heads of State and Government, at the last European Summit (21-23 June), to drive the EU in a very different direction”.

They go on to ask:

“What is left from the ambition to reform the EU into a more efficient, democratic and legitimate enlarged Union? The result, full of compromises, opt-out opportunities and special texts for certain countries, is not going to give rise to a treaty that wins any federalist awards. Indeed, the result is extremely disappointing for anyone who had been campaigning for a Constitution for Europe and in particular for the Constitutional Treaty. What is left from the improvements achieved by the Convention? Where did the substance of the Constitutional Treaty go?”

In their assessment:

"The constitutional concept, which consisted in replacing all existing Treaties by a single text called ‘Constitutional Treaty’ is abandoned. In fact, this involves much more than just loosing the name “Constitution”, as the new Treaty will lose in fact its constitutional character. It starts with the suppression of the Preamble and the European symbols from the Treaty. Common values and symbols are not indispensable to an institutional settlement, but perhaps desirable to create the premise of a European identity. It continues with the opt-out agreement of the Charter of Fundamental Rights for the UK. Thus the civil and social rights given by the Charter are only applicable for certain citizens but not for all.

"What is perhaps more damageable is the loss of the possibility for the EU to speak with one strong voice in the world. Indeed the compromise reached is a water downed CFSP with the loss of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Now the foreign Minister will be called ‘High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’. What is the use of having a High representative, with very limited powers?

"Furthermore, the lack of a clear terminology and efficiency of EU-Legislation contributes to the substantive change of the Constitutional Treaty. For instance the supremacy of EU law will be deleted and replaced by a declaration on the supremacy of EU law. Then, the denomination of ‘EU framework law’ and ‘EU law’ will be abandoned and instead the existing denomination of ‘regulations’, ‘directives’ and ‘decisions’ will be kept.

"...this summit showed once again that Europe is currently only the sum of nationalist ambitions and Machiavellian intrigues between EU capitals.”

This extremely disappointed reaction of the federalists should make anyone take claims of the Reform Treaty being a federalist conspiracy with a pinch of salt!

Federalists are in despair. Far from being delighted with the outline for a Reform Treaty agreed by the European Council in June, as most Eurosceptics would lead you to believe, federalists have much to moan about.

The idea of a "constitution" has been abandoned. Ditto for the EU's Foreign Minister. The president of the European Council will become semi-permanent with a 30 months (instead of the current rotating six month) term of office - meaning that the president of the Intergovernmental European Council, chosen by the Prime Ministers of the member states, will become more prominent at the expense of the President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament. There is to be no qualified majority voting on tax, on foreign policy or on security. Foreign policy is to remain firmly intergovernmental. The Commission's "embassies" around the world are now to come under the joint responsibility of the Council and the Commission, allowing member states to have greater control over them and to place their own staff in them. The Charter of Rights has been partially neutered. There are more opt-outs for member states, not least the UK.

Either Britain's Eurosceptics are far too blinkered to notice this, or else they are deliberately ignoring it because they want to frighten people into believing that any changes to the current EU treaties mean a step towards a more federal system, which they anyway characterise as a centralised superstate. Don't expect any of them to dwell on any of the above subjects.

An angry-sounding mumble of “federalists” or a shrill scream about “constitution by the back door” are the normal Eurosceptic responses to Europe-wide measures.

So it was with some surprise that I learned Chris Heaton-Harris, an arch-Eurosceptic Tory MEP, has called for Europe-wide measures to protect people against identity fraud.

He usually opposes European-wide measures of any sort, so I was curious to know what provoked this commendable U-turn. It turns out that he has himself been a victim of identity fraud, to the tune of £3,000.

Nothing like a dose of reality to change the mind of a self-styled "Euro-realist".

Federalism is often thought of as a dirty word by many Eurosceptics, considered a European idea completely un-British. The reason right-wing Conservatives want out of the EPP is because of its federalist principles, while for UKIP federalism is one of many reasons we should leave the EU all together.

Yet federalism is a concept that originates in Britain. British colonists were responsible for setting up the US federal system. Britain also ensured many of its former colonies adopted a federal structure, such as Australia, India, Nigeria and Canada. Following the second world war Britain was also influential in encouraging a decentralized federal system in Germany.

The founder of the European Federalist movement, Altiero Spinelli, was inspired by a pre-war British group called Federal Union who aimed to combat the spread of totalitarianism by pushing democracies to federate.

A report on the BBC website reveals a book called “The Case for Federal Union”, written by a William Curry in 1939, managed to sell 100,000 copies in just six months. They advocated many ideas that are now integral to the EU, including an elected European Parliament.

I attended an academic conference last Saturday at the University of Kent, that traced the British tradition of federalism through its various manifestations over the last 200 years, and a fascinating conference it was, highlighting the role Britain has played in bringing federalism to the world, including of course Europe.

But of course, federalism, as properly defined, does not mean a centralized system, let alone a “superstate”. It simply means having different levels of governance to deal with problems of different scale, each level having a defined remit, a degree of autonomy and its own democratic accountability. The system should be as decentralized as possible, centralized only where necessary. A bit like the current EU, according to the academics present in Canterbury.

Today I went to Canterbury, where I was invited by the University of Kent to attend the launch of their new Centre for Federal Studies. Professor David Marquand gave an interesting lecture and I made the first comment.

Marquand pointed out that Britain has bequeathed numerous federal systems to countries across the world: Canada, India, Malaysia, Australia, Germany, South Africa, Nigeria, and so on. Yet the idea is still seen as alien to Britain, notwithstanding some federal aspects of devolution and the EU.

Marquand described this anti-federalism as a neurosis. He pointed out that Britain's objective in promoting federal systems in the above countries was to avoid a powerful centre and to protect separate identities - exactly Britain's objectives in the EU! The trouble is that most of the public here thinks federalism equals centralism.

But curiously, Marquand then went on to blame this state of affairs not on our press or the Eurosceptics, but on Tony Blair! Prof Marquand is a Lib Dem. It's a shame that he wanted to bring party politics into an academic lecture in this way. Of all the targets for a pro-European to attack, the most pro-European Prime Minister in a quarter of a century, who has actually negotiated and signed three European treaties, is a curious one to single out.

Anyway, good luck to the University of Kent in their attempt to raise the level of knowledge and understanding of federalism in Britain!

Another nail in the coffin for the argument that the constitution is 'pro-federal'. The Union of European Federalists passed a resolution in its Brussels committee that

"criticises that the constitution falls short of what is needed in many respects, mainly:

• "by not abolishing the unanimity rule in many important fields...; in particular in foreign, security and defence policy and for the multi-annual financial framework;
• "by not introducing a procedure that makes the entering into force of the constitution possible when all but one or two member states have ratified the text;
• "by foreseeing a revision procedure which does not allow the constitution to evolve in a flexible and efficient way."

The UEF is just one of several pro-federal European organisations which have complained that the constitution does the opposite of what they want: it cements a firmly nation-state, firmly British view of the EU for the future.

It is interesting to see how some people claim the new constitution is a great victory for federalists. That is certainly not the view of many federalists whom I know.

From a federalist perspective, the draft constitutional treaty can be strongly criticised. It fails to set up a European Federation and, indeed, it contains a number of steps away from the federal dream and in the direction of a Union of nation states. Under its terms, the Union remains based on a treaty which can only be amended with the agreement of each and every member state. Several key areas of decision taking remain subject to unanimity. The Commission is potentially weakened, both in terms of its composition (one per country until 2014, equal rotation thereafter) and in terms of the creation of a separate President of the European Council. The latter will be appointed by national governments with no input from the European Parliament and will strengthen the inter-governmental features of the Union at the expense of the supra-national dimension.

Even the creation of a European Minister for Foreign Affairs is not the step forward that many federalists might have hoped for. On the contrary, the structure envisaged could mean that the external relations powers of the Commission are captured by the Council. In effect, the current "High Representative for Foreign Affairs", appointed by the national governments in the Council, takes over the position of External
Relations Commissioner as well and the relevant Commission departments could be removed from the Commission to come under his/her authority.

The Common Foreign and Security Policy amounts largely to a co-ordination of national positions and is only "common" if all member states agree on the same position. There is no scope for harmonising taxation, as this still requires unanimity.