EU Constitution - Ratification

Referendum, expected for December 2005

Latest News: Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates said his country will postpone its referendum on the European constitution after EU leaders extended the ratification deadline as a consequence of the French and Dutch rejection of the treaty.

He told that the government will instruct the parliamentary group of the ruling Socialist Party to postpone the referendum in Portugal in view of the decisions by EU leaders last night.

The government had planned to hold the referendum in October, at the same time as municipal elections, a move that would require parliament to pass a constitution amendment.

In June 2003 the two biggest parties, Social Democratic Party, PSD, and the Popular Party, PP, consented to hold a referendum on the EU Constitution.

Former Prime Minister Jose Manuel Barroso, who resigned in July to become head of the European Union Commission, told parliament last June that his government would hold a referendum.

On the 17th of December, the Constitutional Court decided that the referendum question that had been endorsed by the Portuguese Parliament prior to its dissolution was not in line with the "clarity" principle and was therefore "unconstitutional" (the proposed question was the following: “Do you agree with the charter of fundamental Rights, the rule of voting by qualified majority and the new institutional framework of the European Union, in the terms included in the European constitution?”).

Before dissolution of Parliament, April 2005 had been mooted as a possible date for referendum but this has been delayed because of the general elections in February. The new prime minister announced on 12 March that he would like the referendum to be held at the same time as local elections in October 2005.

The right to call a referendum belongs to the President, acting on the proposal of Parliament or of the government or of a group of citizens.

The constitutional referendum act regulates the details of the scope of referenda, the arrangements for calling them, the questions that may be asked and their organisation.

Portugal

: area ~ 92.400 sq km

previous referendums on European issues

A referendum was planned for the Treaty of Amsterdam, but the wording of the questions was not acceptable to the Constitutional Court, and the President of the Republic did not give his permission for it to be organised.

Public hearings on the Treaty of Nice and on the future of the Union were organised by the Parliamentary Committee on European Affairs before the parliamentary approval of this treaty.