Brussels, 14/02/2002 (Agence Europe) - Before the first meeting of the Praesidium of the Convention on the future of Europe takes place on 28 February, José Maria Gil-Robles, President of the International European Movement, has written to the President of the Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (who had also previously been President of the European Movement). Mr Gil-Robles' written request is for the Convention to give itself time for a preliminary reflection on the aims of the Union (its values and limitations), before tackling the finer details. He also asserts that the Convention should deal with additional subjects to those discussed at Laeken, such as European citizenship and Union finance.
With regard to the working method, Mr Gil-Robles called for the Praesidium to designate an "Rapporteur general" responsible for summarising the proposals and putting together the first draft of the final document and rapporteurs for each working group in charge of ensuring that decisions are reached according to the consensus principle. Mr Gil-Robles believes that this method proved effective in the case of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. He wants Convention Members to be seated according to their political allegiance and not on nationality, which would emphasise the European nature of the Convention (Mr Giscard d'Estaing wanted this to be based on alphabetical order - EUROPE 13 February page 5). The Spanish MEP also called for the public dialogue with representatives from civil society and the Convention to be organised at national and European levels (the European Movement is one of these representatives - Editor's note). He also suggested using Internet sites and hearings etc, in close co-operation with the Economic and Social Committee to facilitate this dialogue.