Brussels, 22/05/2001 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference, the President of the EPP/ED group at the European Parliament, the CDU MEP Hans-Gert Pöttering welcomed the attendance of Wilfried Martens, President of the European People's Party, and the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, and Commissioners Loyola de Palacio, Viviane Reding and Michel Barnier at the first meeting of the Presidents of the EPP groups at the European Parliament and the national parliaments. This type of meeting will take place twice a year in the future and will be systematically organised by the EP's group and the parliamentary EPP group(s) of the country holding the EU's six-month Presidency. The next meeting will take place in October or November.
Mr Pöttering focussed on the following areas which were discussed at the meeting:
Enlargement: He stressed the agreement of all participants for there to be no new conditions on enlargement, which should go ahead according to the published timetable (Mr Pöttering explained that the group had called for the first round of new Member States to take part in the next European elections in 2004). With reference to the request for southern countries to join the Structural Funds, he said that a fair solution had to be found that showed solidarity. In reply to a question, he added that the Spanish members of the EPP 'said that they did not want to create obstacles to enlargement' and that the Commission should soon put forward a solution for the Structural Funds. Mr Pöttering also signalled that a small enlargement working group had been set up in the EPP group made up of the British Conservative MEP James Elles, the Secretary General of the New Demokratia group in Greece, Dimitris Sioufas, the President of ÖVP in Austria, Andreas Kohl, and the spokesman of the Partido Popular in Spain, Luis De Grandes Pascual;
The future of the EU: Mr Pöttering reaffirmed the EPP's support of the convention model (bringing together, as for the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, representatives of the EP, national parliaments, governments and the Commission) for preparing future Institutional reform. In response to a question on the Swedish proposal for COSAC to be involved in the process of revising the Treaties, the President of the Moderaterna party in the Swedish Parliament, Per Unkel, explained that this was essentially about getting greater involvement of national parliaments through a parliamentary convention based on COSAC. He added that this could be organised in parallel with the convention preparing the IGC or it could take place before.