Brussels, 18/10/2002 (Agence Europe) - Schröder's government has decided that foreign minister Joschka Fischer will replace its representative at the European Convention, Peter Glotz. CDU MEP Elmar Brok welcomed this change, noting that it would require regular attendance at the Convention by Fischer and hoping that the decision meant the German federal government was returning to Germany's traditional position vis-à-vis Europe, in other words a European Union along the lines of Monnet's ideas. He also hoped that the German Chancellor's recent "excursions" in the intergovernmental field would come to an end, seeing them as contradicting Germany's traditional position. Answering reporters' questions, the spokesperson for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, said on Friday that the Convention did not make official comments on such decisions (which were the responsibility of Member States and their parliaments), but he did point out that the decision by the biggest EU Member State to give this role to its foreign minister underlined the increasing importance of the European Convention.
The Co-Presidents of the Green group, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Monica Frassoni said the good decision should enable Joschka Fischer to act as a mediator between governments focussing on preserving their powers and forces on the Convention that genuinely favour reform. Until recently, Germany was rather hesitant but is now taking its place again in the European constitutional process, noted the two MEPs (a German national elected in France and and Italian national elected in Belgium).