Brussels, 14/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - A certain number of representative civil society organisations and networks note in a letter to the President of the EU Council, Guy Verhofstadt, that they are "prepared to create between them a board coordination in order to promote transparent consultation at national and local levels" with the Convention that will be paving the way for the future IGC; and propose that the "Praesidium of the Convention should organise regular meetings with the representatives of this co-ordination. The signatories suggest that five representative networks should also be able to meet the Praesidium regularly, viz. environmental NGOs (co-ordinated through Green G8); social NGOs (Social Platform); development NGOs (Liaison Committee of Development NGOs); human rights NGOs (organised by Amnesty International, FIDH and Human Rights Watch); and the Permanent Forum of Civil Society. The signatories feel that the social partners represented by the ETUC should be "associated on a permanent basis to the Convention as observers, given their Treaty-based specific role for the functioning of the labour markets".
Pier Virgilio Dastoli, Spokesperson for the Permanent Forum of Civil Society, felt that if the Belgian Presidency were to find it impossible to strike unanimous agreement on all the decisions to be taken at Laeken, it should be able to note whether or not a "substantial majority" supported the decisions, as had happened at the Milan Summit in June 1985, which decided to convene the IGC that came up with the Sole European Act.
In a separate appeal to heads of state, non-governmental organisations from the EU Member States call on EU leaders at Laeken to help create a new global deal against poverty "which will galvanise the world's governments at the Financing for Development Conference" in Monterrey (Mexico) on 1/-22 March 2002.