Brussels, 06/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Convention's "listening phase" will soon be finished and the "real work" will begin in the working groups set up by the Convention (see page 7), explained Inigo Mendez de Vigo to several reporters on Thursday. He chairs the European Parliament's delegation to the Convention and is a Member of the Praesidium. The Partido Popular MEP highlights the potential of the groups, noting that the one chaired by Giuliano Amato on the EU's legal personality will deal with large-scale political issues, saying that if his group called for a Constitutional Treaty, Mendez de Vigo didn't think the IGC could oppose it. The government representatives on the Convention are well divided up among political groups, answering "they are everywhere" to questions about the risk of deadlock on the Convention if blocked by Member States. In this connection, Mendez de Vigo also stressed the importance of the work of the political groups on the Convention. Estimating that around 70% of the Members belonged to either the EPP-ED or the PES, he said that the EPP would be holding a caucus in Roquebrune (Côte d'Azur in France) from 28/30 June to which Chancellor Kohl and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had been invited; and the EPP would be holding its Congress in Estoril from 17/19 October, after which is will be adopting a draft European Constitution (the deadline for tabling amendments to the Schäuble-Martens draft was 6 June, Ed).
Next week, the Praesidium will discuss the report Valéry Giscard d'Estaing will be presenting to the Seville Summit, explained Mendez de Vigo, noting that VGE would be meeting the Danish prime minister Rasmussen next week, the upcoming President of the European Council (the Praesidium is meeting on 13 June, Ed). It would be a mistake for the Seville European Council to suck the substance out of the Convention, said the Spanish MEP, answering questions about current negotiations at government level about reforming the Council, saying he had the impression that no big decisions would be taken in Seville concerning the Council. He felt the debate that has opened up on this issue was a type of consequence of the fact the Convention was being held. Parliament had been calling on the Council to reform itself, without much of a result so far, he explained, adding that the Convention now obliged governments to do a kind of striptease. The European Commission has unveiled a very committed Communication, unlike recent practice, which was also a fallout from the Convention, said Mendez de Vigo, adding that Romano Prodi did well to express orthodox Community ideas and had put his cards on the table, and the others are playing their hands; It would not have been very wise for Prodi to try and make a compromise, since it is not his job to do that.
Asked about the type of document the Convention might present the IGC, Mendez de Vigo said that the Convention Members drawing up a basic document would be very important, but he thought it would be very difficult for the Members to get down to proposing amendments to various Treaty articles. He was at pains to define the ambiguous notion of "consensus", referring to the Convention's experience with the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for which he had chaired the European Parliament delegation. He said that the four components of the first Convention (the same as now - EP, national parliaments, governments and Commission) first reached consensus among themselves before seeking overall consensus by making a series of shuttles between all the last amendments. The EP won its way on around 28 of the final package of 30 amendments, and 13 of its 16 representatives felt this was satisfactory, which Mendez de Vigo saw as "consensus". He said that on the Convention (unlike the IGC) there wasn't any veto and the Irish President at the time said he couldn't agree to the Charter, although the Dublin government at the Biarritz Summit did not oppose it in the end.
Mendez de Vigo said that the history of the catalogue of powers was dead, adding that Peter Glotz, representing Chancellor Schröder on the Convention, had come out against such a catalogue (desired by the Minister-President of the Land of Baden-Würtemburg, Erwin Teufel, Ed). The key to the problem of power is subsidiarity, argued the MEP, and without wanting to forestall the work of the group he chairs (see p.8), he said that the Lamassoure report approved by Parliament said that control of subsidiarity should be both an ex ante political control by the European Commission (in the future, this could be strengthened by creating a Subsidiarity Commissioner) and ex post control by the Court of Justice (which in the future would have to give judgements in one month). Mendez de Vigo noted that he had tabled an amendment whereby MPs could present appeals concerning subsidiarity, but that he had been "beaten".