21/05/2003 (Agence Europe) - new call from Convention Member Olivier Duhamel to his colleagues in this final phase of the European Convention - "Let's say it loud and proud that we refuse the options. Let's get rid of the poison before it spreads". In his N.24 Chronicle of the Convention, the French Socialist MEP called on VGE and the Presidium to "hear this voice". He also points our that, "VGE is as strong as iron in sticking to his demand for the creation of a Congress of peoples…he would therefore keep at it, as if it were the cry of a child and present it as an option. Would he be able to give up this doll and just keep to the issue of the Constitution?" Mr Duhamel also appealed to the British government and "representatives of the less populous countries, who are still tense about this or that demand". He warned them that, Are they unable to understand that the Intergovernmental Conference will not give them what they expected from the Convention. He concludes that to present these options would be "to sign for the failure of the Convention", the failure of the Convention "would sign the failure of the Constitution" and this would "cause the European Union lasting paralysis", as "all everyone knows that in such a state, the institutions would not work any more". (See EUROPE 20 May p 8).