Various political forces and politicians have not waited for the Convention to start work before stating what they think the' result should be. This is understandable - arranging forces before a match. I will not attempt to outline all the different views since our daily bulletin does that very competently. I will restrict myself to a few comments.
The most pointed and caustic remarks. Again, the most pointed and caustic comments on the Laeken Summit were made by Jean-Louis Bourlanges MEP (in an interview with Baudouin Bollaert in the "Figaro"), arguing that heads of state at Laeken failed on three counts:
a) By sanctioning the interference of people's representatives (MPs and MEPs) in the constitutional process that had previously been the jealous monopoly of governments - this is a confession of failure that merits comment and a welcome;
b) By giving the Convention such a wide mandate that the debate will necessarily cover areas covered by the Nice Treaty so very few people now believe the Treaty will actually be ratified. The Chairman selected by the heads of state, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, was the top level politician most fiercely critical of the Nice Treaty;
c) Aware of their failure at Nice, by making an appeal to the last generation of Founder Members of European Community - this could have been Jacques Delores, but he was "killed off" by Jospin's clever game to ensure no French figure escaped from social democracy's clutches in the European arena. So it's Giscard d'Estaing. Mr Bourlanges says they both represent a "Community superego" (a kind of "European duty" beyond consciousness, working on the subconscious level) which even led the Princes of Intergovernmentalism among heads of state to select a "harbinger of Community Europe".
Over and above these ideas, Jean-Louis Bourlanges feels the Convention exercise will be unbelievably tricky because beyond lip-service, there is no real consensus among the Member States about the Union's aims, powers and institutional model. This might mean the Convention failing but it is the last chance to the see the EU give itself the institutional means required for success. If the Convention succeeds, the fifteen governments will have to decide on its document and those that want to stop Europe in its tracks will have to come out in the open and turn it down - to date it has been enough for them to craftily drag their feet to maintain things as they are.
The Greens want a "new majority". The differences in opinion at EU level about the future of Europe means one has to be wary of a consensus that papers over differences. In an appeal signed by Cohn-Bendit, Pierre Jonckheer, Paul Lannoye, Magda Aelvoet, Monica Frassoni, Dominique Voynet and Claudia Roth, the Greens are calling on Christian Democrat, Social Democrat and Liberal groups to form a pro-European majority in the Convention and draw up a single document based by and large on shared beliefs but also on some more controversial views. The appeal openly calls for abandoning nuclear power, opposing the WTO (free trade should respect basic working standards, social rights and the environment), a guarantee and better definition of services of general interest, moving beyond the Treaty's three pillar structure, etc. But do the EPP, Socialists and Liberals agree with these aims? If consensus existed on all these fronts the Convention would not be necessary - we are nowhere near this at present.
EPP goes off the rails? I cannot understand how the European Peoples Party (EPP) can continue to recommend an institutional setup whereby (I quote the document from No. 2264 of our EUROPE/Documents series, annexed to our newsletter of 4 December 2001): "Executive functions should no longer be exercised by the Council. The role of the Council should be one of a chamber representing the Member States and legislating together with the European Parliament…The Commission has to be developed into the real Executive of the Union…The tasks of the Secretariat of the Council should be exercised by the Commission." Such a setup is completely unrealistic in my view, and if by chance it were implemented and led to the opposite results from those wanted by the EPP, far from favouring the "Community method", but would mean the victory of the intergovernmental method with the European institutions being reduced to managing the common market. I will explain what I mean tomorrow. (FR)