In Brief... World News Review: Radical Changes in EU Constitution Would Create a Strong Parliament

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will push for a radical restructuring of the European Union's governing institutions to create a centralized EU government with a two-chamber parliament and expanded powers, a spokeswoman for his party said on April 29.

Mr. Schroeder's plan, if accepted in an EU constitutional convention in 2004, would lay the foundations for what the most ardent integrationists see as an eventual United States of Europe.

The proposal is meant to advance a postwar dream of European political unification and reflects Berlin's efforts to carve a greater German leadership role in Europe, EU analysts said. But the notion of a unified Europe, which inevitably would dilute the authority of national governments and parliaments, remains a flash point of deep division within the 15-nation bloc and would take years to implement.

The leadership of the governing Social Democratic Party, which Mr. Schroeder heads, outlined its blueprint for Europe's future in an internal party document, the newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported in its April 30, 2001, edition. Grit Auerswald, spokeswoman for the party, confirmed the report Sunday and said that the party's national board would review the paper on May 7 and present it at the party's annual convention in November.

The German vision is likely to receive a hostile reaction from Britain, which has not yet joined the 12-nation common currency and exhibits a popular distrust of a European "superstate." Analysts said that Mr. Schroeder's plan was likely to go beyond the aims of the French political elite, who want to retain a greater degree of national influence but who also support a future EU constitution in some form. The Danish, Swedish and Finnish governments also are likely to give it a cool reception, EU analysts said. Spain, too, will not likely endorse this idea.

The April 28th edition of The Economist featured a piece about Elmar Brok, a German member of the European Parliament. Mr. Brok's ideas of European unification echo those of the German chancellor. He is calling for a constitutional convention that would draw up a new constitution by the year 2003, a full year ahead of schedule. He talks eagerly of a "new treaty of Rome to seal the process started at the first one, in 1957."

Sources: International Herald Tribune and The Economist.