The EU Constitution is dead - long live the Peoples' Constitution

It looks as if the French and Dutch referenda will see off the European Constitution.

This gives us, the people, an opportunity to compose and put forward a Peoples' Constitution for Europe. If we present it well, it might even succeed where the old one failed.

In the first place, it should be presented in digestible steps, so that people understand what they are voting on.

I suggest a 10 word mission statement, a 218 word summary, a 1000 word declaration and a 10,000 word legal document.

In order to get things going, here is something - the first 2 steps. I will leave it to others to get going on the longer bits if it is thought worth pursuing

Mission Statement

The European Union exists in order to provide the people of Europe with the possibliity of living in a sustainable, equitable and healthy way.

Summary of the Constitution

The European Constitution sets out the legal framework necessary to enable the peoples of the Eurpean Union to co-operate as indviduals communities, regions and nations to achieve the possibliity of living in a sustainable, equitable and healthy way.

Sustainablity means providing for our biological and human needs in a way that does not impair the ability of future generations to provide for their needs. Economic processes within the EU will neither take from the environment, nor discharge into the environment, any more than is absolutely necessary, and no more than the environment can sustainably provide or absorb.

Equitable means providing for impartial justice for all European citizens and a tendency for the economic fortunes of all terrestrial humans to converge rather than to diverge. Equity entails democracy, wherein ultimate power lies in the will of the people, and subsidiarity, where decisions are made as closely as possible to the people affected by the decisions.

Health implies providing a framework for human happiness, fitness, absence of disease, and open access to medical care when illness supervenes regardless of the ability to pay.

To achieve these aims, economic processes within the EU will be subject to taxes that will internalise the ecological and social impacts of the processes, guiding the market towards ecological and social sustainablility.