BOB CROW, GENERAL SECRETARY OF RMT UNION

Bob Crow

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says it's essentially the same document.

Former French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing says it's "very, very near" the original.

So does former Italian prime minister Giuliano Amato, who should know, because he helped write it.

According to Amato: "The proposed new treaty and supplementary protocols take over almost all the innovations contained in the constitutional treaty.

"They only leave aside the symbolic changes which were introduced by the constitutional treaty - such as the title of the treaty or the symbols of the union."

Dozens of EU leaders openly admit the same thing, yet UK politicians are trying to claim that it is a different treaty to convince us there is no need for the referendum we were promised two years ago.

Whatever you call the EU Reform Treaty, it contains the same anti-democratic mix that was in the constitution supposedly killed off by French and Dutch votes in 2005.

It is the back-door constitution which would still transform the EU into a state, and transfer power to an unelected EU government.

For working people it would be a disaster, further institutionalising the mis-named economic "liberalisation", forcing more privatisation of public services and abolishing vetoes over transport and a host of other areas

GARY TITLEY MEP, LABOUR LEADER IN EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Gary Titley

People say the European Constitution and the reform treaty are the same.

But you could say my car and a Formula One racing car are the same. They've got four wheels and an engine - but that's about it.

The constitution and the reform treaty are two very different things.

The government said there would be a referendum on the constitution, but there isn't a constitution anymore.

The changes in the new reform treaty are only minimal, not fundamental, and therefore no referendum is needed.

The European Union is a process and not a state, and the reform treaty is simply about modernising and updating the rules.

We have got a parliamentary democracy and Parliament should decide that.

The RMT is arguing that the UK has opted out of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

This is wrong. What we have done is made the wording clearer to show that the European Court should not make changes which alter or make the charter worse.

We need this because of the way the British common law system works, which is entirely different from continental Europe.

The treaty is about modernising and streamlining and trying to make the EU simpler.

Most people aren't interested in the processes. They want to know what Europe does, not how it does it.

It's about jobs and energy and competing in a globalised world. The treaty is a means to those ends rather than the end itself.

See also:

Ex-minister demands EU referendum

BBC News: 26 July 2007

Labour former minister Gisela Stuart has criticised the government for not holding a referendum on the EU treaty.

Ms Stuart said all the major points of the constitution were in the treaty

She said it was "extremely misleading" to say, as the treaty suggests, that it gives back more power to member states than the abandoned EU constitution.

Ms Stewart, who helped draw up the original constitution, said it was important to give voters a say.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists a referendum is unnecessary because the UK has secured a series of opt-outs.

The government had previously promised to hold a referendum before the constitution was rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands.

Ms Stuart, MP for Birmingham Edgbaston, said she had read an "unofficial" translation of the new constitutional treaty and "all the big items" from the previous document had been retained.

'Trust'

She told MPs: "The red lines that we now say we have secured and therefore don't need a referendum, actually those red lines were already protected in the constitutional treaty on which we were prepared to give a referendum. Nothing has changed.

"This is now a question of trust. It is a question of having given a commitment to a referendum on a document which we say is good for Britain.

"We actually should ask the people to endorse that. If we are so confident it is good, we should have the confidence to ask the people."

Ms Stuart, who was a member of the group which drew up the original constitution, told MPs: "The foreign secretary and the Europe minister, who at the moment deny this treaty is substantial enough that we should be bound by that promise, they are either being deliberately disingenuous or ill-informed."

'Fundamental'

The EU treaty was published in draft form on Monday.

The Tories say it would "fundamentally change" Britain's place in the EU and are calling for a referendum.

On Wednesday, shadow foreign secretary William Hague said there was "near unanimity" across Europe that the treaty was "simply the substance of the EU constitution repackaged".

But Mr Brown has accused the Tories of returning to an "old agenda" on Europe.

Negotiated before he took over from Tony Blair as prime minister, the treaty gives an opt-out on a human and social rights charter and keeps an independent foreign policy and tax and benefit arrangements.

Europe minister Jim Murphy told the BBC: "We wouldn't sign up to any treaty that transferred in any significant way, any UK sovereignty to the European Union."

When it was put to him that others said there had only been cosmetic changes to the old constitution, he said: "The UK has signed up to a UK version of the European treaty."

There will be three months of talks on the text of the new treaty aimed at reforming the 27-member European Union.

The final text is expected to be ready in time for a summit in Lisbon in October.