Brussels, 10/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - In a contribution adopted last week on the Constitution of the Union, the Permanent Forum for Civil Society again rejected the "confederal choice...of pure intergovernmental co-operation". It believes that the response to the "powerlessness of Europe" is a "federal Europe". According to the Forum, the peoples of the Union must be able to express themselves "either by referendum on the adoption of the Constitution or by calling for a constituent assembly with a mandate for deciding upon projects drafted by the Convention". The Forum has announced that it will submit a preamble to the Constitution before the end of the yea and is also requesting that: a chapter on this is devoted to the "principles of participative democracy"; "constitutional procedure is included in the framework of EMU…allowing for the adoption of common criteria for the elaboration of budgets…in Member States"; principles for a "European tax and the power to raise taxes are integrated into the Constitution".