Brussels, 30/01/2002 (Agence Europe) - Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar has chosen Ana Palacio to represent the Spanish government within the Convention on the future of Europe. Ms Palacio, who is a member of the EPP-ED Group and Chair of the EP Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, thus becomes the second MEP, with Jacques Santer for Luxembourg, to represent her government within the Convention (both MEPs will naturally continue their work at the Parliament). Belgium has also appointed its representatives at the Convention. The government will be represented by Foreign Minister Louis Michel and the parliament by President of the Socialist Party Elio di Rupo, and VLD President Karel De Gucht, both former MEPs.
Furthermore, during the inaugural meeting of the EP delegation within the Convention, its president, Inigo Mendez de Vigo (EPP-ED, Spain), stressed that the fact that the EP delegation is the first element of the Convention to be formally constituted must be interpreted as a clear sign of the determination to get down to work "without losing time". He reaffirmed the importance of the stakes of the Convention that will be "the most important political exercise of the current legislature". He also said the delegation will seek to be the "champion of openness and transparency" and that it will guarantee "close links with the civil society and European citizens". Mr Mendez de Vigo and Hänsch, who are also representatives of the EP within the Presidium, met Messrs Amato, Dehaene and Giscard d'Estaing. Mr Mendez de Vigo also pointed out that he is to meet the president of the EPP party, Wilfried Martens, during each meeting of the EPP members from the Convention. German Social Democrat Klaus Hänsch, Vice-President of the EP delegation, said for his part: "The Convention should be bold enough to move towards a European constitutional process. For this, it is not a question of reinventing the wheel but of improving the Union's decision-making capacity, strengthening its cohesion and perfecting its competences. The Convention should focus on the central issue of the future of Union and not get lost in a wonderful world of dreams. It should present before the summer recession a first coherent project that will serve as a base following work within the Convention and the debate with European public opinion". The other vice-president, British Liberal Democrat Andrew Duff, considered that MEPs should "help the Convention overcome its teething troubles" and introduce a parliamentary approach into its work by enhancing "both its capacity and ambition". The Chair of the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs, German Elmar Brok (CDU), who is also a member of the Convention delegation, expressed concern about the role that the Presidium may play, where governments are better represented than the parliaments. He said that one must prevent it from turning into a sort of Directorate that submits texts to the plenary for approval, a plenary that would be no more than a registration chamber. This is a point of view shared also by the Austrian ÖVP elected member, Reinhard Rack, who urges for transparency and affirms that the Convention must not hide behind closed doors. He recalls that the national parliaments and the European Parliament have a majority within the Convention and considers that one must rebuff all attempts by governments that aim, especially through procedural manoeuvring, to dominate the Convention. French national Alain Lamassoure (UDF), when speaking to journalists, insisted on the need for the Convention to reach majority positions at the end of the process. "Given those who are craving for consensus, one should have the courage to take majority decisions", said Mr Lamassoure, who is a member of the EP delegation. In his view, the "very existence of the Convention is recognition of the Council's impotence". It does not know how to draft the statute of the wider Europe, added Mr Lamassoure, saying that this is why it has passed on the task to another. He went on to say that the Convention should "ensure that the work of the IGC is almost formal".
Polemic in the Socialist Group
After the letters sent last week by British Labour member Richard Corbett and German Social Democrat Jo Leinen (see EUROPE of 25 January, p.5, and 28/29, p.6), it is German Social Democrat Dagmar Roth-Behrendt who has written to the president, Enrique Baron, in his capacity as Chair of the group of Coordinators, in order to protest against the way in which the Group's Bureau has appointed Socialist members of the EP delegation to the Convention. The letter recalls that the coordinators are elected by the members of their respective committees and considers that the Bureau has done wrong by not appointing the coordinator of the Constitutional Committee and assigning the five seats earmarked for Socialists as part of the EP delegation to the Convention to five members of the group's Bureau. Ms Behrendt said that the coordinators were asking the Bureau to reconsider both this decision and relations between themselves and the Bureau at a joint meeting.