Soros urges EU to forget constitution

Soros urges EU to forget constitution
Blames Bush for world 'disarray,' – U.S. 'no longer in the position to set the agenda'

Billionaire financier and political activist George Soros advised a major European Union policy group this week that the EU should scrap its plan to form a constitution and, instead, embrace his vision for a "global open society."

Speaking before the European Policy Center in Brussels, the Hungarian-born U.S. citizen and head of the Open Society Institute praised the EU as an "inspiring" example of an "open society," with none of its members dominating the others and human rights its central tenet, reported the EU Observer.

Citing the 20th-century sociologist, Karl Popper, Soros hailed the development of the EU by the "process of piecemeal social engineering ... directed by a far-sighted, purposeful elite who recognized that perfection is unattainable."

Soros urged the EU to "shelve" its proposed constitution, calling it "an over-ambitious step" in light of its rejection last year in referendums by voters in the Netherlands and France.

"I believe the debate on the constitution should be shelved," he said. "To try and force [the constitution] through people's throats now" would be met with further popular resistance.

Again appealing to Popper, Soros said the lack of a constitution may be "appropriate to an open society because ... our imperfect understanding does not permit permanent and eternally valid definitions of social arrangements."

Soros proposed that the constitution be "unbundled and presented piecemeal," particularly those reforms that would give Europe a "common EU foreign policy" to better challenge the U.S.

"That is the one part of the European constitution that urgently needs to be rescued," he said.

Calling the war on terror "counter-productive," Soros blamed U.S. policies for the world's "disarray."

"The United States used to be the dominant power and set the agenda for the world. But President George W. Bush's war on terror undermined the basic principles of American democracy by expanding executive powers."

The U.S. is "no longer in the position to set the agenda in the world," he said.

Soros called on the Europe to "play a more active role than it did in the past," noting the rising threat from Russia.

"I have bad news on Russia," he said, noting that it "has emerged as an authoritarian state" and was using natural resources to "assert its power."

"Needless to say, a common EU foreign policy should not be anti-American," he said. "Such a posture would be self-defeating, because it would reinforce the division of the international community that the Bush administration has initiated."