Can the European Union’s proposed Constitution be revived or is it dead, asked an Associated Press report carried in The Malta Independent last Wednesday.

European leaders are of two minds on this issue, which brought the EU to its knees on a political level midway through 2005 after first France, and then Holland, rejected the ratification of the Constitution in separate referenda.

That came before the disagreement on the EU budget in the June summit under the Luxembourg presidency, a problem that was resolved at the December summit under the British presidency.

Now that the financial crisis that would have hit the bloc, had no compromise been reached in Brussels just before Christmas, is no longer a threat, there seem to be attempts from some quarters to revive the issue of the European Constitution which, it must be remembered, the Maltese Parliament approved with a rare vote of consensus last summer.

Other countries are rather sceptical that there will be a reconsideration and they seem to want to put the issue behind them.

Austria, which holds the presidency until June, seems to want to push the debate on the EU Constitution, or at least a re-thinking of the whole EU structure, to make it fit the new scenario – 25 countries and other members-in-waiting – better. But at the same time it admitted that the Constitution would be difficult to revive.

“We are wasting much time with discussion about the Constitution. The crucial point is jobs, jobs and more jobs,” said Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser.

This is a good point. Observers believe that the failure of the Dutch and French referenda last year was because people felt the EU was not concentrating enough on bread-and-butter issues. Through their “no” vote they wanted to push for a greater focus on social matters, including employment. They wanted to pass on the message that the EU is not seen to be as close to the people as its leaders think.

While France and Germany, according to the AP report, appear to favour a “reworking” of the existing Constitution – “which consumed years of work and millions of euros” – other countries, such as Holland, consider the Constitution in its current form as “dead”, a position with which Hans-Gert Poettering, chairman of the conservative European People’s Party, does not agree.

What is going to happen now? Will there be a second attempt to work on the Constitution that has been drawn up and rejected, in the hope that there will be a change of heart? Will any changes to the existing Constitution, to give it a wider social dimension, be enough for it to be accepted?

Or will there be a complete re-writing of the text, that would again take years to finish, discuss and adopt? Will the EU take the risk of spending more millions of euros on a new Constitution, knowing that it could, once again, be rejected?

It is hard to tell.

What is sure is that the political uncertainty that emerged in the spring of last year, when the Constitution was rejected in France and Holland within a few days of each other has not, as yet, been overcome.

With the financial issue resolved for the years 2007-2013, Austria can give more time to the EU Constitution than it would have had if no agreement had been reached. But whether it will succeed in bringing all EU members together on this issue remains to be seen.

What European Commission vice-president Guenther Verheugen told a German television station practically sums up the issue: “Perhaps the Austrian presidency will show us how the discussion process can get going – because in the pause for reflection, so far we are seeing only the pause, and unfortunately not the reflection.”