Brussels, 25/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - French Socialist Olivier Duhamel, MEP and Member of the Convention on the Future of Europe, proposed last Friday that the Convention should develop a questionnaire "reflecting the questions raised by the Laeken document that will be put to the European citizens through the Eurobarometer". The proposal was supported by Giuliana Amato, Vice-Chairman of the Convention, who chaired the very last part of the plenary, and was "validated, without opposition, by the Members of the Convention", stressed Mr Duhamel. Pervenche Beres, alternate Member, proposed radical simplification of the European vocabulary, and said the Commission should be called the "EU government".
Neil MacCormick, member of the Scottish National Party and member of the Greens/EFA Group, requested for his part that the Convention should pay special attention to the "concerns of constitutional regions". He announced proposals on reform of the Committee of the Regions. Austrian Green member Johannes Voggenhuber noted, to his "great consternation", that, during the plenary session on 21 and 22 March, national identity had often been conjured up, to the "detriment of European identity, which has been denied". Last Friday, the representatives of the Democracy Forum expressed their discontent following the rejection of the proposal by Jens-Peter Bonde on the admission of "Euro-realists/Euro-sceptics" to the Convention Praesidium. The Forum called, moreover, for review by the Convention of the whole acquis communautaire. EUROPE will come back to this.