"substantially equivalent"

There have been renewed calls for a referendum on the proposed European Union Reform Treaty, after a committee of MPs found it was "substantially equivalent" to the Constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters.



The House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee said it was "likely to be misleading" for the Government to claim that the treaty no longer had the characteristics of a constitution. And it warned that the special UK opt-outs and protocols secured by the Government to protect its so-called "red lines" may not prove effective in practice.



The committee also criticised the "secretive" process by which the draft of the new treaty - due to be signed by EU heads of government in Lisbon at the conclusion of an Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) later this month - was compiled.
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