Brussels, 05/12/2002 (Agence Europe) - When presenting, Thursday afternoon, to the European Convention the Commission's contribution, which he had already illustrated before the European Parliament (see previous pages), Romano Prodi noted with satisfaction that the objectives of the Convention had become much more ambitious than what the Nice Declaration had provided for. Government representatives come to the Convention and speak out "in the light of day", a "first real society debate" has developed, and civil society "has had its voice heard", said Prodi, also struck by the "fast maturation of the political debate" within the Convention: whereas at the outset one temptation could have been to "negatively define the Union's competencies", we took a positive approach by defining the latter's "missions", he noted. According to him, the Convention is also the right place to debate the "moral and spiritual values" on which European integration is based.