As I watched the European Union’s leaders sign the Lisbon reform treaty on Thursday, my mind wandered back to that pleasant autumn day in Rome in October 2004 when many of these same leaders signed the constitutional treaty that was the present document’s ill-fated predecessor.

Italy’s prime minister at that time was Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media magnate. He had fought tooth and nail to make sure Rome was the city in which the constitutional treaty was signed. In fact, some said  this had been the only goal that he really felt passionate about when Italy held the EU presidency from July to December 2003.

So along trooped all those presidents and prime ministers and foreign ministers three years ago to the great hall of the Horatii and the Curiatii in Rome’s Capitoline museum - the place, incidentally, where the EU’s founding Treaty of Rome had been signed in March 1957. It was a moment made for Berlusconi: one European leader after another travelling to his capital city, to perform their secondary parts in a drama presided over by himself.

Other Italians liked it, too. Among my children’s collection of euro coins from the 13 nations that share the single European currency is a 2-euro coin minted in Italy with the words "Costituzione Europea" on it. (This was very naughty on the part of the Italians, since the document wasn’t a "European Constitution" but a constitutional treaty for the European Union - not the same thing at all.)

As we now know, the constitutional treaty bit the dust, and Berlusconi’s premiership bit the dust, and he doesn’t even have the consolation of an everlasting Treaty of Rome signed in his presence when he ruled Italy.

And yet under the bright December skies of Lisbon, there was on Thursday a distinct sense of déjà vu. Here was José Sócrates, Portugal’s prime minister, milking the occasion for all it was worth as his fellow-leaders were herded into Lisbon’s awe-inspiring Jerónimos monastery to sign the treaty.

The Portuguese were adamant from the start that the treaty must be signed in their capital. They were also adamant that it must be known as the Lisbon treaty. Like Berlusconi and the Italians, they wanted their moment in the European sun.

So be it. I hope it works out for the Portuguese. They have run a good EU presidency since last July - much better than Italy’s dismal effort in the second half of 2003. It would be unfair on the Portuguese if the ratification process failed next year and the new treaty went up in smoke. In all probability, that won’t happen.

Still, the experience of Berlusconi is a lesson to us all. Two months before that grand treaty-signing ceremony in Rome, he’d had his first hair transplant. A year later, the hair was there but the treaty wasn’t

December 13th, 2007 in EU's future | Permalink