EU CONSTITUTION - HALF DEAD OR HALF ALIVE?

Among the European Union's other pressing problems, a Constitutional Treaty is still waiting for attention. Whether the patient is in need of simple rehabilitation, or of heroic resuscitation, the treaty is not yet dead. But a decision cannot wait for ever, and the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee will shortly resume its review of where to go next.

So what are the options for a treaty that has been accepted by half the member states and half the EU population, rejected by two founding member states, and remains in principle - up for grabs in the others?

The room for manoeuvre is limited. Since it was almost universally billed as essential to successful operation of an enlarged EU, it can't just be conveniently shelved as an episode too embarrassing to recall. EU public opinion has been marched vigorously up the hill. It cannot be easily left there and still less, marched down again - without yet more damage to the credibility the EU has already lost as the price of this melancholy process.

In addition, the operational issues the treaty was designed to deal with still need resolution: the scope of qualified majority voting, the size and shape of the Commission and Parliament, representation of the EU in foreign affairs, or the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rightsa

But there is not much prospect of implementing selected components of...