The relish with which the anti-European British press has rushed to proclaim the last rites over the EU's fledgling common foreign security policy is premature.
Under the constitution, the union would have a foreign minister to conduct "common foreign and security policy" and operate a nascent European diplomatic corps.
Moves towards a single European currency, passport-free travel, co-operation on justice and home affairs, and a common foreign and security policy were all kicked off by the Maastricht treaty of 1992.
I welcome this report, which stipulates that Parliament asserts the right to be consulted more effectively and to play a more active role in the EU's common foreign and security policy and European Security and Defence Policy.
At that time, the clause was seen as part of the general development cooperation objectives and the common foreign and security policy.
French officials have stressed that the widely used phrase "political union" does not mean creating a federated European state, but lesser moves that could include strengthening the powers of the European Commission and the European Parliament and developing a common foreign and security policy.
States are exempt from most of the more contentious EU policy areas such as common agriculture and fisheries policies, customs union, common trade policy, common foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs and monetary union.
By the Maastricht Treaty (formally known as the Treaty on European Union; 1991), which went into force on November 1 , 1993 the European Economic Community was renamed the European Community and was embedded into the EU as the first of its three "pillars" (the second being a common foreign and security policy and the third being police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters).
That produced the Maastricht treaty of 1992, which not only promised to create a single currency by 1999 but also set up a common foreign and security policy and new arrangements for co-operating on justice and home affairs.Special report Fit at 50? Are you sitting comfortably?
Meanwhile the EU has been developing a common foreign and security policy and even a fledgling military arm.
