P.J. O'Rourke: My E.U. Vacation

My E.U. Vacation: THE FRENCH REFERENDUM on the E.U. constitution was a story that demanded to be viewed and understood from a thoroughly European perspective, so I went on vacation. Guadeloupe, in the Caribbean, is a full-fledged departement of France. Here the European Union could be contemplated as the socio-politico-economic masterwork of a civilization, an edifice of human hope. And never mind that previous attempts to unify Europe by Hitler, Napoleon, and Attila the Hun didn't work out, it had been a cold, rainy spring in New England.
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As beach reading that constitution fulfills one criterion--it's 485 pages long. And Danielle Steel could not worsen the prose style: "The institutions of the Union shall apply the principle of subsidiarity as laid down in the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality." Every aspect of European life is considered in exquisite detail, vid. Annex I, pages 403 and 404, clarifying agricultural trade regulations for "edible meat offal" and "lard and other rendered pig fat."
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According to the constitution, the E.U. is (or was) to have five branches of government: the European Parliament, the European Council, the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, and the Court of Justice of the European Union; plus two advisory bodies: the Committee
of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee; and four additional independent institutions: the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Court of Auditors, and the European Ombudsman. Here we have a system of bounced checks and balances.

Part II of the constitution, "The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union," gives us an idea of what "rights" are supposed to mean in Europe: "Everyone has the right to life." This, on a continent where there's more respect for Dick Cheney than for a fetus. The Charter prohibits "making the human body and its parts as such a source of financial gain." Botox injections will be covered by National Health. There is a "right" to "an annual period of paid leave." (I was having mine.) And a declaration that "The use of property may be regulated by law insofar as is necessary for the general interest." Lenin couldn't have put it better. What there was in this constitution that a subtle, sophisticated European could object to eluded me, as did reading the rest of it.