Brussels, 06/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - MEP Members of the European Convention have set up small informal working groups that have started to work on the various draft articles for the EU's future constitutional treaty unveiled by the Convention's Praesidium. In Strasbourg next week the European Parliament component of the Convention will draft amendments regrouping the amendments already published by MEP Convention Members.
Meanwhile Andrew Duff, a member of the Institutions Working Group with Klaus Hänsch and Teresa Almeida Garrett, has unveiled a series of amendments to the following articles: Article 14: the question of the seats of the institutions and agencies to be decided by qualified majority voting; Article 15: to install a maximum ceiling of 95 MEPs from the largest country (Germany) and a minimum threshold of 4 for the smallest (Malta); Article 16: to replace the six-monthly presidencies with a multi-annual political strategy proposed by the Commission and decided upon by the European Council; Article 16a: to suppress the idea of a permanent president of the European Council, proposing instead an integrated presidency of the executive formations of the Council with that of the Commission; Article 17a: that the President of the Commission chair the General Affairs Council and the Vice-Presidents chair the other executive Council formations, while a rotating minister continues to chair the Law Council but with a shorter term of office of three months; 17b: to add a formal definition of enhanced Qualified Majority Voting for particularly sensitive subjects; Article 17: to allow each Member State one full member of the Commission; Article 18a: to reverse the procedure for electing the President of the Commission so that the political nomination comes from the European Parliament and the appointment is made by the European Council; and Article 19: to make the minister of foreign affairs a full and proper member of the Commission.