The European Parliament’s plans to resuscitate the European Constitution were thrown in to disarray after the presidents of the Austrian, Finnish and German national parliaments wrote a letter to the European Parliament’s president Josep Borrell. The letter attacks key parts of a draft report – the so-called Duff/Voggenhuber report – aimed at resuscitating the EU constitution. Ever since May and June of 2005 when the French and Dutch electorates rejected the European Union’s Constitution those who would have the Constitution brought into law have pinned their hopes on the European Parliament (EP) to jump start the ratification process.

The report, presented last week by the British liberal MEP Andrew Duff and his Austrian Green colleague Johannes Voggenhuber, was to lead the way. It calls for the recreation of the Constitution and a pan European referendum to overrule the voices of those countries that are sceptical. This referendum is suggested to take place on the same day as the next European elections in 2009.

All this however has been undermined by an unprecedented letter sent by Andreas Khol MP from Austria, Paavo Lipponen MP from Finland and Norbert Lammert MP from Germany. The three men are the presidents of the Austrian, Finnish and German parliaments. These parliaments are known as the “troika of the coming council presidencies.” Austria, Finland and Germany hold the EU presidencies in 2006 and 2007, with their national parliaments coordinating European national parliamentarians’ common activities.

The strongly-worded letter was written on the 13th and posted on the 16th of January, three days before the Duff-Voggenhuber resolution was to be debated during the Strasburg plenary session today. In it the presidents of the three Parliaments attack the European Parliament, suggesting that it is acting in an overbearing and presumptuous manner. The Duff-Voggenhuber report calls for “the European Parliament and national parliaments jointly organise conferences – Parliamentary Forums – in order to stimulate the debate and to shape, step by step, the necessary political conclusions.” The letter of the three national parliaments, however, makes it clear that they refuse to cooperate because “there is neither a need nor a mechanism to find a joint strategy of national parliaments on how to engage in a lasting debate.”

“Due to the fact that 13 countries have already ratified the constitutional treaty and 12 countries have not, the national parliaments have very different approaches towards the debate on the future of Europe and there is neither a need nor a mechanism to find a joint strategy of national parliaments on how to engage in a lasting debate,” the letter states. The writers of the letter added that they “would not like to be seen just as an appendix to the European Parliament in such a process.”

Alexis Wintoniak MP, the parliamentary secretary of Andreas Khol, the head of the Austrian Parliament, said that “though the European Parliament has every right to decide what it wants to do, we have made clear what we feel is possible and have made our position clear to the European Parliament for several months.” Another signatory, Paavo Lipponen, the Finnish Parliamentary President, met Mr Borrell, the EP President, today to voice his concerns.

Astonishingly, the very next day after the letter of protest was sent, Jo Leinen MEP, Chairman of the European Parliament’s Constitutional Affairs Committee and a major force in the EU’s integrationist agenda, directly contradicted the national Parliaments’ concerns in a letter to Mr Borrell. Two days before the vote he hubristically wrote, “On Thursday [sic] 18th January 2006, the European Parliament will adopt the resolution submitted in the report Duff/Voggenhuber and thus confirm its will that in the framework of the present period of reflection parliamentary forums be organised, jointly by the European Parliament and the national parliaments.”

A leading Eurosceptic MEP, Nigel Farage, Co-President of the Independence and Democracy Group who brought the issue to light said, “It is wonderful to see national parliaments asserting their independence in this manner. However it is typical of the arrogance of the European elite personified by Jo Lienen that he utterly ignores and contradicts the legitimate concerns of the member states.”

Mr Wintoniak made the problem very clear, when he pointed out that the situations in different nation sates are very diverse. “In Austria we ratified the Constitution, in Holland they rejected the Constitution and in the UK there has been no movement.” He asked whether the European Parliament really wants to reopen discussions in Austria, when the Austrian Parliament voted 182 to one in favour of the Constitution?

As EUobserver observed today “The national parliaments’ show of strength in the face of the EU institutions comes after an announcement of a deal last autumn, backed by all 25 national parliaments except the Italian one, [to draw] up a common list identifying [EU] legislative proposals […] that are potentially in breach of the principle of ‘subsidiarity.’ The subsidiarity principle, enshrined in the EU treaty, states that the EU shall only take action when action at member state level is ineffective.