Brussels, 04/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - At the plenary on Friday morning, several members of the European Convention asked about the chances of concluding their work in June as planned. If, at that time, we are not satisfied with the "quality of consensus" achieved, could we not invoke the former practise of "stopping the clock?", asked MEP Andrew Duff. This would be the surest way of missing the deadline, warned Convention Vice-President Jean-Luc Dehaene, who stated that the plenaries were set for 5 - 6 and 12 - 13 June, without ruling out the option of a further plenary thereafter. It might be better to "lock us in a monastery and only let us out when we have a result", he quipped. Caspar Einem, the Austrian Parliament's representative, said that towards the end of the work, it might be an idea to explore methods other than plenaries. And MEP Klaus Hänsch spoke in support of a new configuration of plenaries, longer, but broken up by "inter-family, inter-group" discussions, to allow greater progress afterwards, with all the members.
Convention Vice-President Giuliano Amato had announced, at the opening of Thursday's plenary, that the mid-May plenary, on articles concerning institutional architecture and external relations, would last at least two full days, as opposed to the two half-days planned. He suggested the meeting start at 10am on Thursday 15 May (instead of 3pm), and last all Friday, "and keep going until Saturday morning if we have to". Giuliano Amato stressed that the Presidium feels this is necessary to allow the time needed for such important subjects, if they are to keep to the June deadline.
In a press conference, Jean-Luc Dehaene explained that the Presidium intended to propose draft articles for external and defence policies at the plenary session on 24-25 April. He would also like to do the same for the paper on the Institutions but the paper may not be ready on the date. Whatever happens, he underlined that it was "essential" that it was presented in time to be debated at the session on 14-15 May. The Presidium will then be presenting a complete and revised draft treaty after the session on 14-15 May.
In answering questions, Vice President Dehanene found "the increasing distrust between so-called large and small countries in the Union, regrettable". He informed the press that the Presidium had to "make efforts to get beyond this". Asked about the proposal for organising referendums on the treaty (see EUROPE yesterday p 6), Jean-Luc Dehaene stated that it would first of all be necessary to know was meant: a single Europe-wide referendum or in each Member State? He also stated that, "Personally, I don't find referendums the zenith of democracy".