Brussels, 03/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Federal Council of the International European Movement, chaired by Jose Maria Gil-Robles MEP examined a report at its 30 November and 1 December meeting in Brussels by the Chairman of the International Movement - Belgium, Charles Fernand Nothomb which led to a lively debate between those wanting to go further on the path of federalism and those in favour of a more moderate approach. The Federal Council asked Mr. Nothomb to work on his text, taking account of these two major tendencies, by January, so as to be able to submit it to the Convention that is to prepare the institutional reform.
Meanwhile, the Federal Council adopted a declaration in which it states, in particular that the European Council of Laeken must re-kindle the debate on the future of Europe "with an open and ambitious enough mandate, defining its contents, method and timetable, as well as (…) the contours of what the Union should be and its institutional system after enlargement". "It is time o define a genuine political project for Europe", says the International European Movement, which "undertakes to present its precise ideas and proposals in time for a European federal model, applicable to our enlarged Union, as well as fuelling the work of the Convention". This, according to the declaration, "must lead to the adoption of a coherent and complete project, a Constitution for the Union having to be the goal of the 2003 Intergovernmental Conference". The declaration raises in another passage making a synthesis of the two major trends, the "federal finality", stating that it has to be formulated so as to correspond to the "demands of unity and the diversity of cultural policies in Europe".
Speaking before the Federal Council, Pier Virgilio Dastoli, outgoing Secretary of the International European Movement (and who has been made honorary Secretary General and confirmed at chairman of a committee on "civil society and academia"), presented his "moral report", in which he makes a six-year assessment, lacing special emphasis on the May 1998 Congress of The Hague, under the chairmanship of Mario Soares, and the creation of a Permanent Forum of European Civil Society and "The Academic Agora on the Future of Europe", chaired by Jean-Victor Louis. In his report, Dastoli (who for years was the closest associate of Altiero Spinelli) regretted tat, on the Constitution and federalism, the attitude of the International European Movement should have been for a long time "excessively timid", while observing that, after the Congress of The Hague, "we past the Rubicon and unambiguously asked for a Constitution for Europe", and that, when reviewing the statutes, "we placed the federal character in our AND - without adjectives, demonstrative or diminutive - of out political battle".
Duff proposes Schauble, Ruggiero or Sutherland as Chair of the Convention
British Liberal-Democrat, Andrew Duff MEP (and who will probably be the main representative of the Liberal Group in the future Convention, says a press release), stressed before the Federal Council that the choice of the Chair of the Convention was going to be one of the most important decisions of the Laeken Summit. "We need someone with practical skills of chairmanship and who is not too fond of his or her own voice", he said, adding that the Convention would not work well "if it is treated like the Congress of Vienna". He the added: : if nobody in the current European Council is prepared to resign to do the Convention job, we should not search the archives for former great men. Frankly, I would prefer someone first class from the second rank of European personalities - a Wolfgang Schauble, Renato Ruggiero or a Peter Sutherland - to someone second class from the first rank" (May we point out here that some experts have, other than the names of the former President of the CDU, Italian Foreign Minister and the former European Commissioner and former Director of the GATT, also mentioned that of European Commissioner Antonio Vitorino, who took an active part in the work of the Convention that drew up the European Charter of Fundamental Rights).