Brussels, 23/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Conference of Presidents of political groups in the European Parliament will have, this Wednesday, an exchange of views with the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, on the work programme for 2001 and future prospects. It notably expects from the Commission President that he specifies his vision of the up-coming works of the institutional reform of the post-Nice (see EUROPE of 19 January, pages 13 and 14, concerning the speech by Mr Prodi during the EP plenary last week).
During the previous meeting of the Conference of Presidents, last Thursday in Strasbourg, the President of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, defended her planned "platform" through which the EP would associate civil society in the thought process on "post-Nice" (see her speech to the EPP Congress in Berlin in EUROPE of 15/16 January, p.4). As Mrs Fontaine had already explained to the press, this platform will be followed by a better involvement of national parliaments, possibly through Assizes of the EU parliaments, and will precede a revision process of the Treaties involving a Convention (such as that which drew-up the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights) and a Intergovernmental Conference. Mrs Fontaine insisted for a rapid launching of the "platform". She said that she had spoken with the Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Persson, who supported the idea and had proposed to launch it as of 1st February. The Presidents of the groups welcomed the idea (Mr Baron even said that it is "excellent"), but also felt that there is no cause to act in haste. Some underlined that the work by the Constitutional Affairs Committee must not be perturbed by other initiatives whose shaking-up could be counterproductive. Finally they felt that it was important to listen to President Prodi before taking a decision, and not to exclude the European Commission from these kinds of initiatives.