"We, thelites..." Any constitution written for the European Union in the past half-century, had it been honest, would have started with those words. The document that eventually emerges from the convention which got down to work this week in Brussels-and which is compared by some of its less modest members to the gathering in Philadelphia in 1787 that produced the American constitution-should reflect the fact that the elites no longer speak for Europe. The convention provides a wonderful opportunity to relaunch the European venture. It would be a tragedy if the next 12-18 months were spent drawing up a document that simply made the voters yawn-or retch.
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