Brussels, 29/09/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Convention, charged with the elaboration of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, must conclude its work in Brussels on Monday, after a solemn session allowing all delegations (European Parliament, Commission, national parliaments and government representatives) to express their approval. This consensus will allow President Roman Herzog to officially transmit the definitive project to the French Presidency with a view to the Biarritz Summit.
The European Parliament, which is still to give its position on this text, no doubt in the form of assent, will hold a first debate on Tuesday in Strasbourg on the legal status of the future Charter. Adopting the Duff/Voggenhuber report, the EP had already given its view in favour of a binding Charter included in the Treaty in preamble form. The constitutional committee will present a draft resolution along these lines. The attitude of several Member States, including the UK, and the last declarations from the French Presidency make MEPs fear that this text will at the end of the day only take the nature of a political declaration solemnly signed in Nice by the presidents of the three institutions. French Socialist Pervenche Berès has already presented two amendments to the resolution of the constitutional committee. One amendment specifies that only the Convention remains competent for drafting the Charter until its definitive adoption (in order to cut short any vague impulses for amendments by institutions); the other invites the Biarritz Summit to call on the IGC to study all means for integration of the Charter in the Treaty: preamble, protocol or reference to the Charter included in Article 6. The latter solution allows binding force to be given to the text while avoiding, for now, the debate on the constituent nature of the preamble solution.
Inigo Mendes de Vigo (EPP, Spain), Chair of the EP delegation, again stressed the interest the "Convention" mechanism could hold in future for making certain dossiers move forward with consensus. In his view, the EP must now focus all its efforts on one objective: that of making the Charter binding.
"The report is positive, and, even though the text does have some shortcomings, it deserves our approval", said Spanish President of the Socialist Group, Enrique Baron Crespo, who stressed the many changes made by the Socialists over the last few days. Noting that the "Charter allows content to be given to citizenship", he hoped this exercise would not remain "simply academic". He stressed the need to make the Charter binding at the Nice Summit, and Ms Berès insisted on the fact that it would be far more "eloquent for people than the introduction of a new power" in the Treaty.
Speaking before journalists, European elected CSU member Ingo Friedrich cited among the successes obtained by the EPP Group the inclusion in the preamble of the word "geistig-religiös" (see EUROPE of 27 September, p.3) and the reference to respect of private and family life. In his view, those who, in this exercise, have not achieved their aims are the "centralists" who wanted to attribute greater powers to the EU through the Charter, the "revolutionary modernists" who wanted to created completely new rights (such as that of marriage between persons of the same gender) and the "socio-romantics", who wanted to anchor all the rights of the Social Charter in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.