Paris, 07/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a new publication of the "Notre Europe" Study and Research Group chaired by Jacques Delors, entitled "The Convention for developing the Charter of Fundamental Rights: a method for the future?", Florence Deloche-Gaudez draws the lessons that are to be learnt from this new experience of drafting the Charter for the work of the future Convention chaired by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, in preparation for the next reform of the European Union.
Florence Deloche-Gaudez currently teaches political science in Paris and above all acted in an advisory capacity for European questions at the French Foreign Ministry's Analysis and Forward Planning Centre. In her paper (No 15 of the Studies and Research series), she mainly notes that the task of the new Convention will be different from and considerably more complicated than that of the Convention which, under the presidency of the former German President of the Republic, Roman Herzog, had drafted, in 2000, a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the European Union, even though its work had initially been surrounded by a certain amount of "scepticism". The mandate of this first Convention "counted" and was "globally respected", stresses the author, who recalls that the work had begun with an "act of independence". At the initiative of the European Parliament, the new structure had replaced the scarcely flattering term of "meeting" given to it by the Heads of State and Government at the Cologne Summit by the more symbolic term "Convention". Florence Deloche-Gaudez also remarks that, despite their "heterogeneity, the actors of the Convention of the year 2000" "managed to work together". She also recalls that personal reasons (Ed.: the death of his wife) had after several months forced Roman Herzog to be absent and that the presidency of the Convention had "become more collegial" with a stronger role for its vice-presidents and its Presidium as a whole. The author notes among the reasons for the success of the Convention on the Charter the "interest that participants took in their task" - which should be an incentive for the members of the Convention that is to begin its work in March this year".
The innovations that Florence Deloche-Gaudez envisages for the new Convention include the possibility to have recourse to voting, whereas the earlier Convention had worked by consensus. In her view, "given the delays and the agenda of the new Convention, it would be risky to simply leave it to consensus, and the recourse to votes could "help to unblock certain situations, all the more as there are various ways to do so" (for example, there could be "indicative voting" or voting "per component part" of the Convention, that would allow each of them to make their opinions known on any controversial issue). In addition, she considers that there are "several considerations in favour of drafting a coherent draft rather than a list of options". The author recognises that the "as if" rule had contributed to the serious nature of the work of the first Convention (on 17 December 1999, during the first meeting, Romano Herzog had spoken of drafting a text "as if" it would "one day, in a relatively near future, become binding"). "A constructive, structured text, possible indicating majority options and dissident options for certain points, would be more useful for the decision-makers of the member States to which it would be transmitted: it would give a clearer indication of the responses envisaged by the members of the Convention to questions raised by the future of Europe", concludes Florence Deloche-Gaudez.
According to the author, the Convention method could be "used in future for other projects, for example for reflection on the aims of a given policy or examination of the Union's resources system". The Convention, it stresses, would provide a "simpler and more consensual means than the French second Chamber project, would involve national MPs in the process of Community reform" and would contribute more generally to meeting the needs of European construction and of "strengthening the influence of Europeans on the Union's decision-making process".
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