The Convention's achievements must be safeguarded. It must be hoped in all sincerity that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing will achieve his first objective when he presents his draft European Constitution to the Heads of Government on Friday - that of convincing the European Council that it should adopt the Draft as it resulted from the work of the Convention as a basis for the next IGC (Intergovernmental Conference). The IGC should not reopen a general debate on everything analysed and discussed by the Convention during the past year and a half, but should adopt what has achieved consensus without going back over the "long itinerary" covered by the Convention Members (the terms used by VGE himself). The new negotiation should only cover points that are the subject of specific reservation (especially in the institutional field), as well as possibly aspects for which prospects for strengthening and improving the text are real (in particular on economic governance). For the rest, beware of the changes that several national delegations will be seeking to apply! - as this would be tantamount to opening the door to widespread haggling that could result in minimum solutions on every point, all the more as the IGC debates will not be taking place in transparency and publicity as was the rule at the Convention, but will return to the traditional procedures of diplomatic conferences.
A thinned down result would become unacceptable. The Presidency will have specific responsibility from this point of view, refusing to allow the acquis of the Convention to be thrown back into discussion, which - VGE is right to state - would be felt by the public as a step backwards. The Presidency and the Commission should, during the IGC, work hand in hand, and the political forces (Community institutions, Parliaments, European parties, movements and pressure groups) should remain very vigilant. A number of them already consider that the result of the Convention is enough - if it were to be thinned down and diminished, then it would become quite frankly unacceptable.
This warning has nothing theoretical about it. On the contrary, it denounces a real danger. The almost dramatic unfolding of the last phase of the Convention showed that the final success was only possible thanks to mutual compromises between participants, each having given up something, either the principles (the word "federal", "religious heritage", etc.) or certain operational provisions. Such renunciations were not carried out lightly. The temptation to go back on them is sometimes very strong. The example to follow is, I believe, the attitude adopted by French Socialists Pervenche Bérès, Olivier Duhamel and Jacques Floch. Recalling in a joint statement that the progress made resulting from the current draft is sufficiently strong and important for the draft to be sustained and safeguarded, the three parliamentarians nonetheless add that, if some countries want to reopen the debate during the IGC against all Convention logic, then France should do the same in order to gain more in the social, taxation and public services fields. This is quite normal: if the mutual concessions that allowed the final success of the draft are brought into question by any of the parties, then the others will do the same. The sacrifices made must be confirmed during the IGC. If not, everything goes back to zero.
What has remained open at any rate. There is all the more risk that some aspects of the draft have at any rate remained open. The institutional compromise should be confirmed as such in its most innovative elements (like the "dual hatted" Foreign Minister) or those which were the most controversial in the beginning (such as the stable European Council Presidency, with the precautions that made it acceptable), but it seems impossible to avoid consolidating the solutions adopted for two other essential elements: the composition of the Commission and the calculation of majority vote within the Council. Also, VGE announced that the Convention, in its work in July devoted to the third and fourth part of the Constitution, would above all have to discuss economic governance in the euro zone again. There are many who would note the still widespread uncertainty, all the more as the question of enforcement of the Constitution in the event of withdrawal by any of the signatory countries is by no means settled (and it is essential - see our bulletin of 12 June, page 6, for the joint initiative by Giuliano Amato, Elmar Brok and Andrew Duff), and European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein has challenged the Convention direction on taxation issues (I shall come back to this).
One sees how fragile the achievements are and the need for the Heads of Government to result in clear and binding conclusions this weekend on how to follow-up the process.
(F.R.)