Alex Orr: Fresh round of negotiation on Europe is on the horizon

Scotland is heading for a referendum in the not too distant future, but this one is not on the proposed new AV electoral system, or on the constitutional status of our nation within the UK, but on a newly proposed European Union treaty.

The Lisbon Treaty was supposed to be the treaty that put an end to the wranglings over the delivery of a European Union Constitution. In December 2007, the European Union declared that "we expect no change in the foreseeable future".

But less than a year after the Lisbon Treaty came into force, the EU is talking of a new treaty, with discussion restarted by France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Last week they said that, in order to deal with future debt crises, "it is necessary to revise the treaty". Germany was demanding that countries in breach of the eurozone's fiscal limits be threatened with losing their EU voting rights, imposing still greater fiscal rigour in future.

Past experience suggests that keyhole surgery may prove impossible. The European Parliament will want more power. Ireland will almost certainly have to put any new treaty to a referendum. And the UK government has set out proposals giving people a vote before any future powers are transferred to the EU.

Many thought it would be best to wait for bond markets to calm down before tinkering with the rules, but others say that if amendment is needed, it is best to get on with it. A new text would best be negotiated before the 2012 French presidential election, and ratified before Germany's 2013 election, with a referendum here in the UK.

The European Union may not be in a state of permanent revolution, but it is in permanent renegotiation, and when the Scottish electorate heads to the polling stations they will be voting not solely on the minutiae of the new treaty, but on the wider issue of our relationship with the EU as a whole. This is a vote which will be viewed in many quarters as being long overdue.

• Alex Orr is a board member of campaign group the European Movement