The Constitutional Treaty – what does it mean in practice?

(5) New EU powers over our public services

Health and education:The Constitutional Treaty puts the EU in charge of public health, and ends the right of veto in this area. The EU would in future regulate medical standards. A new “right to preventative healthcare” could open the NHS up to a slew of costly ambulance-chasing lawsuits. The Constitution ends the veto over trade agreements in public services like health and education. So our Parliament would no longer have a say over deals which determine how these services are managed.

Public spending rules:The UK Government has rightly criticised the EU’s public spending rules for discriminating against long term investment. But instead of fixing this problem the Constitution means that the EU’s guidelines on public spending would be more tightly enforced, as no member state will be able to vote against being censured under the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines.

Transport:Under the Constitution, Britain gives up the veto in transport. Jacques Barrot, EU Transport Commissioner, recently said that the EU wants to run EU wide road-pricing operations. The AA have warned that this would lead to a loss of privacy.

Public service management:Equally importantly, the Constitutional Treaty does nothing to rein in the European Court of Justice, which in recent years has produced a string of rulings which make it difficult to prioritise NHS spending, and allows those who are willing to threaten legal action to jump the queue.