14/01/2000 (Agence Europe) - "One need not be a great seer to predict that, on Wednesday next, or a little later, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and, then, the European Parliament as a whole will vote in favour of the opinion provided for by Article 48 of the Treaty and that the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) will thus be able to begin work as planned", writes the Belgian Radical Olivier Dupuis, elected in Italy on the Bonino list. He then goes on: "In exchange for what? Of a promise, already provided moreover by the Portuguese Presidency, to take good note of the demands of the European Parliament. With the secret hope that one or other of these demands will get through the IGC unscathed, thereby enabling the EP to proudly claim a new "victory" (…) forgetting one certainty: that the forthcoming IGC already calls for another". See the article on page 4, over the EP's preparations for the IGC.