Peter Van Rompuy, the CD&V party leader in the Flemish Parliament, announced on Sunday that he is submitting a proposal to amend the Belgian Constitution to enshrine the country’s membership of the European Union.
Van Rompuy argues that only by uniting at the European level can we tackle major challenges such as Russian military aggression and the recent trade war sparked by Trump, which pose direct threats to our safety and prosperity. Enshrining EU membership in the Constitution would mean Belgium could only leave the EU with a two-thirds majority in parliament.
When Belgium joined the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, the decision was made solely by the government. That treaty, as well as later treaties for the European Community and EU, were subsequently approved by a wide parliamentary majority. However, legally, Belgium could currently decide to exit the EU with a simple majority. Given the profound impact an ‘exit’ would have on the future of the entire population, Van Rompuy suggests adding the sentence “Belgium is a member of the European Union” to Article 34 of the Constitution.
Other founding EU member states, such as France and Germany, have also explicitly entrenched their EU membership in their constitutions.
