Today in Rome the draft of EU Constitution was signed by EU members and candidates. The treaty is the result of 28 months of debate between the 25 EU governments and now faces ratification in national parliaments. At least nine EU nations also plan to put it to a referendum.

Ratification by all 25 EU members is expected to be a protracted affair, with countries setting their own timetables. But they must ratify it within two years – before Bulgaria and Romania join as planned in 2007.

Here are some of the key points of the Constitution:

– It establish the role and responsability of each EU Institution. In addition it also creates the position of a European Council President. The president would be elected by the Council — the heads of state or government of the member states — for a 2.5 year re-newable term. The European Commission would also be streamlined

– The constitution also creates an office of the European Union Foreign Minister aiming to a common foreign policy but states must agree foreign policy unanimously.

– One key point of the constitution is that it eliminates current veto rights in broad policy areas and replaces them with qualified majority votes. It would require that a majority of EU member states vote in favor of a law and that those votes represent 60 percent of the entire EU population.

– The constitution further strengthens the European Parliament by providing it with a “co-decision with the Council of Ministers,” or vote, on most future laws important to the EU.

– In an effort to fight cross-border crime in the EU, the constitution also would create a European Public Prosecutor Office.

– For the first time, the constitution would also lay out the process by which a country could leave the European Union.

You can find the PDF (752Kb) Draft Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe or you can view the HTML version here.

It’s well known France is one of Romania’s biggest supporters regarding the country’s EU accession. Well, we should know by now that everything has a price, including the love France showed us lately.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin arrived in Romania yesterday for a two-day visit. Next to the adoptions issues to be discussed, he is here to sign three contracts worth more than 900 million euros (US$ 1.1 billion).

We’re talking about the €60M Alcatel contract with the Romanian Railways company and the €480M Vinci contract for the construction of a 37-kilometre (23-mile) section of motorway between Bucharest and Brasov.

And last but not least (and this is the one that I love most) is the “privatisation” of Romanian natural gas distributor Distrigaz Sud, that was sold to the state owned (sic) Gas de France for €150 million for a 30% stake in Distrigaz Sud. The French company will increase its stake in Romanian gas distributor to 51% after the acquisition. It was estimated that up to €400 million will be invested in Distrigaz after the sell-off.

I said I will not write about it, but still, I feel I have to. Just the conclusions after all these days happenings. I couldn’t help myself not reading the follow-up’s on these elections and the news in the day after.

So, Bush won by 3.5 million votes, a 52% majority. This is dramatically higher than what former President Clinton could claim in ’92 and ’96 and it’s the first popular vote majority since 1988 and most votes in election history. Also, Bush is the first president of either party since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 to be re-elected while gaining seats in both houses. Considering all these, whether we like it or not, the things are way much clear that everybody expected (including Bush here, I suppose).

On the other hand looking at the CNN National Exit Polls we can draw up some conclusion as well as understand a little bit what happened.

Looking at the voting pattern the top issue (21%) was “moral values”; 78% of those who cared about that went for Bush, 19% for Kerry. Next: economy/jobs at 20%; 81% preferring Kerry, 17% Bush. So Kerry got much better marks on the economy. Terror comes in third at 18%; 85% preferring Bush, 15% Kerry. That’s the one that is amazing in the importance voters gave. Bush ran on terrorism which wasn’t No. 1 in the minds of voters. Iraq comes in next at 15%; 75% preferring Kerry, 24% Bush.

Now getting in the maths of the votes, there’s a lot to tell. (An impresive analysis on this can be found in an article called Understanding people which I’ll actually quote a lot from here on)

We already saw this year an increase in the voters turnout. As such, Kerry got 4 million more votes than Gore, but Bush increased his popular vote by 8 million. Bush got the same huge majority of votes from the rural America, while Kerry, as well as Gore, got the big cities. In this case, what made the difference, was the sububurbs. In 2000, Bush beat Gore in the suburbs by a very small margin, this time Bush made it.

So who are they? What does the suburban demographic look like? Disproportionately white, disproportionately middle to upper-middle class, higher home ownership and a consumer debt load nearly twice what it was in 2000, low-density, single-family home. They own more, and owe a lot more, than the average American, so they have a lot more to lose.

* they depend on both incomes, and are fearful and stressed out about money

* they are insulated and isolated from other people, especially people from other cultures.

* they are more concerned about crime than city dwellers, for example, even though they have a much lower probability of being its victims.

* they are disproportionally fond of guns, although unlike other Americans, their guns are unlikely to ever be used.

* they are disproportionately evangelical in their religious beliefs.

* they read very little non-fiction

* they know almost nothing about what’s going on in the world outside their own country and Iraq (and they don’t know much about them
either).

* they are worse off than they were four years ago.

Now let me quote again from Understanding people:

Yesterday (November, 2nd) eight million anxious, fearful white American suburbanites, male and female, who didn’t vote in 2000, pried themselves out of their isolated, insulated, heavily-mortgaged, two-income-trap homes, and voted for the devil they knew over of the devil they didn’t. And then they went home and prayed.

Well, after all, the difference was made, and it was huge. Us, who expected a fresh start, we can only hope, that Mr. President will learn something out of it, and will stop making the same mistakes.

Because, after all, whose moral values are we talking about?

UPDATE: Another interesting point of view about How George Bush won the elections?

The big day just came and the results look closer than ever. Will US have another Florida case this year? Here are two links to the live-up-to-the-minute coverage (exit polls, preliminary results etc.) from the two contradictory sources of the last elections results announcements: CNN and FoxNews.

CNN 2004 Elections Results

Fox News- Track Your Races

UPDATE: As for this moment (4.00ET), Ohio became the Florida of this year, even though it seems the things are a little bit more clearer in 2004 and Bush is to remain president for another 4 years. No further comment on this.

UPDATE 2: Well, I said no more comment on this, but everything has actually come to an end with Sen. Kerry calling President Bush to concede the election. I still feel like there is more to be discuss on this, but I will really try to stop here. We can focus now on Romanian elections, huh.