Strasbourg, 02/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - During her speech last week before the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the President of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, welcomed the role played by the oldest pan-European organisation in the reconciliation between peoples' as well as in the protection of human rights. Raising the enlargement of the European Union, she said that the ratification of the Treaty of Nice would not suffice to succeed in the enlargements. It is not only the European institutions that will have to adapt, it is the spirits that must be prepared, she added, when feeling that the Irish referendum calls on us, in a pressing manner, to bring to life a representative democracy, through a democracy of greater proximity with the citizens and their mediators (…) which notably include the territorial authorities, associated movements and the trade union organisations, in one word, civil society. Underlining that, for the European Parliament, the debate on the future of Europe opens the way to the drafting of a true Constitution, Mrs Fontaine nevertheless felt that the hypothesis of a chamber of national parliaments, proposed by a few countries, must be studied with much discernment as it raises numerous problems (she cites its role, composition and its powers, the cumulation of mandates and the danger of conflicts of competence).
Mrs Fontaine also indicated that a meeting between the presidents of the political groups in the Assembly and the conference of presidents of EP groups would soon be organised, possibly in October.