I told you it's not dead....

Just how many lives does this constitution have? The author of this op-ed is a Conservative MEP.

You may have got the impression that the European constitution was dead - that the French had felled it, and the Dutch had pounded a stake through its heart. If so, think again. The constitution is being implemented, clause by clause, as if the No votes had not happened.

While British ministers chunter on about the document being "in deep freeze", other countries are plunging ahead with ratification. Since the No votes, three nations - Cyprus, Malta and Luxembourg - have gone on to approve the text. All right, these may not be the three mightiest powers in Europe, but their endorsement means that 13 of 25 members have now said Yes.

Eurocrats see this number as enormously significant. "It is a strong signal that a majority of the member states thinks that the constitution correlates to their expectations," said the Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, on hearing that Luxembourg had ratified. "The constitution is not dead," added the Grand Duchy's prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker. The European Parliament has duly set up a committee to look at how to proceed with implementation.

Formal ratification by all 25 states is regarded in Brussels as a technicality. To all intents and purposes, the EU is carrying on as though the constitution were already in force. Most of the institutions that it would have authorised are either up and running already, or in the process of being established. My researches have produced the following non-exhaustive list:

• The European Space Programme

• The EU criminal code

• The European Defence Agency

• The common asylum policy

• The mutual defence clause, which replicates Nato's Article Five

• The External Border Agency

• The Fundamental Rights Agency (née Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia)

• Autonomous politico-military command structures

• The European External Action Service (that is, the EU diplomatic corps)

• The EU prosecuting magistracy

• The Union Foreign Minister - that silky socialist, Javier Solana

• The Charter of Fundamental Rights