Brussels, 26/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - Guy Verhofstadt began his tour of the EU capitals in anticipation of the European Council in Laeken with a visit to London on 26 November. On 28 November he will be in Helsinki, on 29 November in Copenhagen, Berlin and Vienna, and then, on 1 December, he will be in Athens. On 3 December his trip takes him to Paris, on the 5th to Luxembourg, the 6th to Lisbon and Dublin, the 10th to The Hague and Stockholm, and on 11 December to Rome and Madrid.
In the meantime, the EU capitals received, on Sunday, the draft Laeken Declaration on the future of Europe that the Belgian Presidency plans to present at the Summit. The seven-page text was sent relatively late, in the obvious concern of preventing Member States from being tempted to undo it. The General Affairs Council of 10 December will provide the last opportunity for discussing the project together, on the structure of which the Presidency had informed the Member States during the Council of 8 October (see EUROPE of 6 October, p.4, and 8 and 9 October, p.6). The Declaration of Laeken will comprise: (1) a first part analysing the Union's strengths and weaknesses; (2) a second part, concerning the method, and above all the future Convention that is to prepare the next Intergovernmental Conference to be formed of government representatives, and representatives of the European Commission, the European Parliament and national parliaments (the Laeken Summit is expected to designate its president); (3) a third part on the substance of the future reform, on the basis of the four sub-paragraphs of the Nice Declaration, namely: - definition of competences at the various levels (a theme particularly dear to Guy Verhofstadt, but also to Germany, and which will require work for clarification and simplification with account being taken of both national and regional levels, but without entailing decline in integration); - the role of national parliaments in European construction (in order to increase the democratic legitimacy of European construction); - simplification of the treaties so that they more readable (which could open a "constitutional" process, a word which is no longer taboo, not even for Tony Blair: see EUROPE of 22 November, p.5); - Status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Commission to fix its position on 5 December
On 5 December, the European Commission will adopt its contribution to the European Council of Laeken, the Commission spokesman said on Monday. We recall that the European Executive is organising a seminar for the preparation of the summit, scheduled to take place on Saturday 1 December in Knokke. The seminar will open on Friday evening with a dinner (see EUROPE of 22 November, p.3).