Gama invites the Conference, meeting at ministerial level on Monday, to focus on composition of the Commission and weighting of votes in the Council, on the basis of the Presidency's specific questions

Brussels, 17/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - The second ministerial meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference will be held on Monday at 11.30 a.m., on the fringe of the General Affairs Council. It will begin with an exchange of views with Nicole Fontaine, President of the EP, and Parliament's two representatives at the IGC, Messrs Brock and Tsatsos. In a letter he has just sent to fellow Ministers, Portuguese Foreign Minister and President-in-Office of the Council Jaime Gama states that at this first session, State Secretary for European Affairs Mr Seixas da Costa will present a report on progress of work by the Group of Representatives (see EUROPE of 8 March, pp. 3-4). Mr Gama said he would invite Mrs Fontaine and President Romano Prodi to state their views on the subjects being addressed at this stage in that body. Ministers will also have the possibility of intervening, but the Presidency intends to avoid a comprehensive exchange at this point.

After the departure of the EP representatives, the Presidency has the intention of concentrating on the issues that will be on the agenda of the upcoming meetings of the Group of Representatives. Jaime Gama expressed his intentions in these terms:

"I would like (…) for us to address two complex subjects -the Commission and the weighting of votes- but in a perspective that enables us to avoid mere repetition of the already well known national positions. I believe that it could be interesting to go into greater detail, in a different way, on a few of the central subjects of the Conference, in order better to orient the debate that will be the focus of the next two meetings of the preparatory group. In this perspective, I would like to propose that this meeting focus on two central questions:

• What criteria and what limits must serve as the basis for differentiation of Member State participation in the decision-making process of the Union (Council and European Parliament)?
• What reasons could justify an evolution of the present structure of the College of Commissioners?

Asking the delegations to answer these questions within a time limit of five minutes for each, Mr Gama added that he did not plan to draw formal conclusions from this debate, in particular because, for now, there is "no stable tendency on the subjects at hand" in the Group of Representatives.