I am going to continue here my survey of the draft version of the Reform Treaty that I started there.

Well, this is the Article one of the consolidated version of the Treaty on European Union:

Article 1

By this Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN UNION, hereinafter called ‘the Union’.

This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen.

The Union shall be founded on the European Communities, supplemented by the policies and forms of cooperation established by this Treaty. Its task shall be to organise, in a manner demonstrating consistency and solidarity, relations between the Member States and between their peoples.

This will be the new version (italic indicates changes):

Article 1 - Establishment of the Union

By this Treaty, the HIGH CONTRACTING PARTIES establish among themselves a EUROPEAN UNION, hereinafter called ‘the Union’ on which the Member States confer competences to attain objectives they have in common.

This Treaty marks a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen.

The Union shall be founded on the present Treaty and on the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall replace and succeed the European Community.

The first adding is that of the title of the article. Titled articles seem to be a convention for the new version of the treaty, all the articles of the old treaty will be changed in this way.

The second adding brings makes clearer the federal concept that the Union exists because it Members want it to exist not the opposite. This is a key point in understanding the difference between a central State with strong regional autonomies and a federal State or Union. In the first case it is the central State that decide if which regions should exist and then it will share or delegate some powers to them and the regions will not be allowed to get more power than that. In a federal State or Union it happens quite the reverse: the constituent States decide to make a Union to exist, after having decided this they find an agreement about which powers they want to confer to this Union and the Union will not be allowed to take get more power than that.

The old Article 2 will be renumbered Article 3 and a completely new Article 2 will be inserted, so this was the old Article 2:

The Union shall set itself the following objectives:
— to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment and to achieve balanced and sustainable development, in particular through the creation of an area without internal frontiers, through the strengthening of economic and social cohesion and through the establishment of economic and monetary union, ultimately including a single currency in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty,
— to assert its identity on the international scene, in particular through the implementation of a common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, which might lead to a common defence, in accordance with the provisions of Article 17,
— to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of the nationals of its Member States through the introduction of a citizenship of the Union,
— to maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice, in which the free movement of persons is assured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime,
— to maintain in full the acquis communautaire and build on it with a view to considering to what extent the policies and forms of cooperation introduced by this Treaty may need to be revised with the aim of ensuring the effectiveness of the mechanisms and the institutions of the Community.

The objectives of the Union shall be achieved as provided in this Treaty and in accordance with the conditions and the timetable set out therein while respecting the principle of subsidiarity as defined in Article 5 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.

And this will be the new version with the completely new Article 2 and the reformed Article 3:

Article 2 - The Union’s values

The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.

Article 3 - The Union’s objectives

1. The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.

2. The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime.

3. The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment.
It shall promote scientific and technological advance.
It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child.
It shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States.
It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe’s cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced.

4. The Union shall establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro.

5. In its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values and interests and contribute to the protection of its citizens. It shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.

6. The Union shall pursue its objectives by appropriate means commensurate with the competences which are conferred upon it in the Treaties.

So the new Article 2 is about the basic values and I have not too much to say about them, apart that I endorse them… Coming to the Article 2, things become a little more complicated. Let’s compare each point of the new Article 3 with its old corresponding paragraph using a table:

1. The Union’s aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.	-
-	— to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of the nationals of its Member States through the introduction of a citizenship of the Union
2. The Union shall offer its citizens an area of freedom, security and justice without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of persons is ensured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime.	— to maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice, in which the free movement of persons is assured in conjunction with appropriate measures with respect to external border controls, asylum, immigration and the prevention and combating of crime
3. The Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market economy, aiming at full employment and social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological advance. It shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social justice and protection, equality between women and men, solidarity between generations and protection of the rights of the child. It shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among Member States. It shall respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity, and shall ensure that Europe’s cultural heritage is safeguarded and enhanced. 4. The Union shall establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro.	— to promote economic and social progress and a high level of employment and to achieve balanced and sustainable development, in particular through the creation of an area without internal frontiers, through the strengthening of economic and social cohesion and through the establishment of economic and monetary union, ultimately including a single currency in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty
5. In its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values and interests and contribute to the protection of its citizens. It shall contribute to peace, security, the sustainable development of the Earth, solidarity and mutual respect among peoples, free and fair trade, eradication of poverty and the protection of human rights, in particular the rights of the child, as well as to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.	— to assert its identity on the international scene, in particular through the implementation of a common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, which might lead to a common defence, in accordance with the provisions of Article 17
6. The Union shall pursue its objectives by appropriate means commensurate with the competences which are conferred upon it in the Treaties.	— to maintain in full the acquis communautaire and build on it with a view to considering to what extent the policies and forms of cooperation introduced by this Treaty may need to be revised with the aim of ensuring the effectiveness of the mechanisms and the institutions of the Community. The objectives of the Union shall be achieved as provided in this Treaty and in accordance with the conditions and the timetable set out therein while respecting the principle of subsidiarity as defined in Article 5 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.

So firstly we notice that peace appeared. Even if this documents are full of rhetoric I prefer to have peace written among objectives to not have it.

Then we notice that citizenship is no more an objective, but from the point two it becomes suddenly clear that it no more an objective because it is taken as something already acquired and it is better to concentrate to what the Union aims to offer to its citizens.

At point 3 we have a more detailed description of what more or less was already present in the old version, but the new version anyway seems to me much better.

At point 5 we find a major change (maybe the only real major change here). The “common foreign and security policy including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, which might lead to a common defence” is no more an objective. This is an interesting point. We can see this change as a tentative to put definitely aside common foreign policy and defence. However the articles we will see while going on with our analysis will show us this is not the case. Anyway this absence is worth of being noticed, especially if we compare it with the explicit presence of the single market and currency that were objectives in the past while now they are much more a kind of “data”.