QCEA: Briefing Paper -The Constitutional Treaty and Referenda (5) Sources of Additional Information

http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/ This site provides access to all legal documents of the European Union and some explanatory material. It is not an easy site to get into and in its own way demonstrates why the current situation with a plethora of Treaties and versions of Treaties (consolidated with amendments made by subsequent Treaties) is not designed to give lay people ready access to understanding the European Union.

http://www.eurolegal.org/yurp/eutreaties.htm This site provides some useful background information on the EU and the treaties.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/EU treaties This site also provides some useful background information on the EU and the treaties. It is quite interactive in its design.

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B: Convention on the Future of Europe

http://europa.eu.int/futurum/documents/offtext/doc151201_en.htm This is the web reference for the Laeken Declaration which established the Convention on the Future of Europe.

http://european-convention.eu.int/ This is the home page of the website of the Convention from where all texts produced by the Convention and the submissions made to it are accessible. For a detailed study of the convention process, this is a good place to start.

http://www.quaker.org/qcea/foe.htm This page on QCEA’s own websites links you to our work on the convention and to a number of other useful links in this context. You will find here, among other things, the briefing papers on the Convention which QCEA produced in 2002 and the full text of our publication ‘Values Matter – Quakers Reflect on Europe’.

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C: The Constitutional Treaty

http://www.euabc.com/upload/rfConstitution_en.pdf This document sets out the full text of the Constitutional Treaty with helpful explanations in the margin. It is a long document, available only as a pdf file and we have only found it in English. It is, however, written from a particular political perspective and needs to be read in that context.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/flash/fl159_2en.pdf This is a survey carried out by Eurobarometer in the summer of 2004 on the responses of European citizens to the Constitutional Treaty.

http://europa.eu.int/futurum/1000debates/index.cfm?page=dsp_content_page&lng_id=2 This is a site produced by the European Commission dedicated to supporting a large number of debates within the Member States about the Constitutional Treaty. It is still in development but already has some useful information. It also allows you register your debate (which you might want to set up in your locality) with them. This will then count towards the target number of debates for your country and for the EU as a whole. The target for the EU is 1000. At this point, some 2 or 3 debates are registered. There is a long way to go!

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D: General Information about European Union Issues

http://www.euractiv.com/ This is a very useful website which monitors EU activity and provides briefings, analysis and links to the briefings and analyses of others on a daily basis. It is possible to sign up to their e-mails which come out several times a day and provide a very easy and quick overview of what is happening, what is new and what needs to be followed up. The site includes a page relating to the referenda in particular which is being updated regularly.

http://europa.eu.int/index_en.htm This is the portal for the European Union. From here you can get to the websites and other useful information about all EU institutions.

http://www.europarl.eu.int/home/default_en.htm This is the European Parliament website. You can find out who is an MEP, what committees they sit on, the agendas of meetings and what was decided. You can get reports on different topics and you can contact your MEP through this site. It also has links to the websites of the offices of the European Parliament in Member States.

http://ue.eu.int/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=1&lang=en&mode=g This is the access site for the Council of the European Union. Here you can find out what is happening within this forum. The Council is less transparent and open than the Parliament and the Commission but is slowly getting better.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/index_en.htm This is the home page of the European Commission. A wealth of information about the activities of the European Commission, from their perspective, can be found here. There are also a number of useful links available from this site.

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Other Papers in this Series

(1) Historical Development HTML PDF (274kb)

(2) Key Components of the Constitution HTML PDF (217kb)

(3) Ratification Process HTML PDF (206kb)

(4) Pros and Cons of the Constitution HTML PDF (206kb)

(6) Actions Points HTML PDF (162kb)

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