EU reform treaty: UK secures opt-out from Charter of Fundamental Rights

On 23 June 2007, European leaders reached agreement on the outline of a new treaty to govern the EU. Although it is not described as a constitution, it retains many of the elements of the proposed EU Constitution, which had been agreed between governments in 2004 but floundered when two member states rejected it in referendums. It covers a number of "constitutional" matters such as the creation of a permanent post of EU President and the weighting of countries' votes in Council, and will also give greater powers to the European Parliament in the legislation process.

The UK Government succeeded in preserving its four "red lines" - areas in which it would not give up sovereignty to the EU. The most important of these was its insistence that the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is to be incorporated into the new treaty, will not change British law or create enforceable rights in the UK.

The Charter covers similar ground to the European Convention on Human Rights (already incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998) but goes much further in some areas. For example, it would improve British workers' right to strike, which currently lags behind ILO standards (see Practice note, Industrial action: Is there a right to strike?). It also contains an extremely broad anti-discrimination principle, which goes further than existing law by banning "any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation".

The text of the treaty is expected to be finalised rapidly before the end of the year, and is expected to come into force in 2009.