Brussels, 24/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - Inigo Mendez de Vigo, President of the EP delegation at the Convention informed the press that this delegation "is going to work on the examination of all the amendments" presented for the draft articles in the EU Constitution and that they would be making a proposal and "preparing for battle". Both he and the other EP representative of the EP at the Convention, German Social Democrat, Klaus Hänsch, highlighted the improvements introduced by the Presidium in a session on Wednesday at nine in the morning to almost one at night. He added that the plucked chicken was in the end prettier with all its feathers. He also explained that if these proposals had not been circulated in the press, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing would today "have more feathers" but the situation should not be blown out of proportion. He also reiterated his opposition to a People's Congress, stressing that the Presidium had not made any proposals that went in this direction and was convinced that it would not have had any support in the plenary.
In connection with the main corrections made by the Presidium, Mr Hänsch mentioned the fact that, the role of the EU cohesion coordinator allocated to the European Council had been ended; the President of the Commission appoints the European Council following European elections, aware of the political majorities at the EP. If, in the space of a month, not majority is gained, the Council must find another candidate; the Commission will not in the future be responsible to the European Parliament (a nonsensical idea); he also said that Council rotation had not been got rid of but had been "reformed". With regard to the number of Commissioners, Mr Hänsch admitted that their reduction (proposed by the presidium) is "controversial" but indicated that with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, the EU would have to modify the Commission's composition, according to the Treaty of Nice: according to Hänsch, there is no room for 30 Commissioners. Another sensitive matter during the presidium debates: the composition of the European Parliament. Mr Hänsch would be pleased if the final result was a threshold of 4 seats and that the remaining distribution of the 700 seats was set according to a criteria of digressive proportionality that depended on the population of the Member States. He acknowledged that this posed some problems but it would need assurances where possible of equality between electors.