Brussels / Bologne, 09/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - Giorgio Napolitano, Chairman of the European Parliament constitutional committee, welcomed the "pro-European vision" expressed in the speech delivered on 8 February at the University of Bologne by the president of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. On the eve of the opening of the next Intergovernmental Conference, "the conditions are met so that Italy takes on a leading role in the current phase of European construction", states Mr Napolitano, who mainly noted in Mr Ciampi's words the reaffirmation of the "need for a common economic government" and the priority of strengthening the Union structures (…), the solicitation of a process of constitutionalisation".
In his speech, Mr Ciampi also stressed that the next IGC should review the rule of unanimity. He noted: "With six of us, we could have found unanimity. With fifteen, it is more difficult. With twenty-five, it will be almost impossible". Furthermore, Mr Ciampi considered that the next institutional reform should envisage "the right to closer integration, to strengthened cooperation between the countries that want and can do so, as was the case with the euro". He went on to add: "with the euro also, we decided among the fifteen of us and we then started up with eleven". Regarding the constitutionalisation process of the EU, Mr Ciampi affirmed that the Union needs a "brief and comprehensible" Constitution creating a European Federation of democratic nations". He also felt that the current transfers of national sovereignty should be "extended" with a view to coming to a Europe that is "made of concentric circles, with strong traditional links and links of identity which must be inscribed in a common legal perimeter".