Barroso warns of semantic distraction to EU progress - by Nicolas Watt
José Manuel Barroso delivered the last rites to the EU constitution yesterday, when he declared that European leaders had created a "hostage to fortune" by giving it such a grand name. In one of his most significant pronouncements, the president of the European commission declared that the title of the measure had allowed both sides of the European debate to rally against it.
"Perhaps the grand finality of the word 'constitution' set it up as a hostage to fortune, both to inter-governmentalists who felt it went too far, and to federalists, who felt it did not go far enough," Mr Barroso said in the annual Hugo Young memorial lecture at Chatham House.
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