Brussels, 06/08/2002 (Agence Europe) - An initiative from the Turkish civil society group, "Europe' s Future - Turkey Group", set up to present contributions to the European Convention, has set out a number of proposals on the institutional future of Europe. A further 156 NGOs have published a common Turkish civil society declaration asserting: ""Turkey's place is in the European Union. We have no time to lose".
In a contribution elaborated with the Economic Development Foundation (IKV), Turkish civil society seeks: a European Constitution and calls for it to be included in the European Convention on Fundamental Rights and in the EU accession treaty at the European Convention on Human Rights. The group also proposes to include a passage on "fundamental rights and freedoms" during emergency situations, according to which, "In case of recourse to any of the extraordinary governance methods due to war, close combat or violence and terror incidents, the use of fundamental rights and freedoms can be temporarily narrowed or suspended to the extent required by the exigencies of the situation and on condition that obligations arising from international law are complied with"; the powers of the European Parliament need to be increased (especially in the second and third pillars) on the condition that this, "does not create a loss of power on the part of the Commission"; strengthening the role of the national parliaments by way of, for example, the COSAC; the composition of the Commission, including the precondition that each Member State is represented within it; the application of the double-simple majority (of countries and populations) during votes at the Council; the role of the Union on the international scene by insisting on the economic, social, cultural and humanitarian dimensions. The "new security definition" must cover both, "soft" security areas - illegal immigration, border controls, the war against terrorism, human and drug trafficking and "hard security" - security zones, defence and peace operations etc.