Brussels, 02/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - Tony Venables, European Citizens Action Service (ECAS) director, expressed his dissatisfaction after the first plenary session on the Convention on the Future of Europe with the conditions for receiving the public at the session.
On 21-22 March, many Convention Members insisted that the EU needed to explain its policies and ideas better with the public, which Mr Venables described as a, "breath of fresh air", in a press statement. The rhetoric was, nevertheless, he continued, not based on reality, a reality of which the majority of speakers were not even aware. He pointed out that individuals and groups that wanted to follow the work of the Convention had been confined to a public gallery that had been full to bursting, for a limited period of around 45 minutes.
Mr Venables sharply pointed out that, "Is the idea behind making merely 50 seats available to the public that the Convention is not of interest to the man on the street? Is it correct to expel people from watching the Convention - clearly visible below in the meeting room - not automatically made available to the public? Why as the public totally sealed off with no possibility of contacting Convention Members from their country or the Secretariat?. Mr Venables, who explained that ECAS managed a project that allowed NGOs outside Brussels to follow the work of the Convention, observed that, "As anyone who has ever attended a public meeting knows, the innately aseptic atmosphere of the internet can educate but cannot ever really convey what is going on. There is no substitute to being there and seeing the Convention for yourself." According to Mr Venables, the Convention is clearly less open than the European Parliament session or, "even the last Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, much criticised for its failure to give sufficient time to hearings with civil society". (ECAS, 53 rue de la Concorde, 1050 Brussels. Tel: 02 548 0490. http://www.ecas.org/