Brussels, 04/07/2003 (Agence Europe) - The Vice President of the Convention, Giuliano Amato informed the press (at the end of Friday's morning session) that "all the political families" wanted an extension to qualified majority voting, notably in the field of common foreign and security policy. According to Mr Amato, broad consensus also existed on the need to include the possibility of all future "technical amendments" to the Constitution to be done by qualified majority voting and no longer by unanimity which is currently the case. On this point, a serious problems still persists, how to define what is a "technical" amendment and which amendments would be of a "political" nature, legitimising the maintenance of unanimity for the revision of the treaty. Mr Amato admitted that, "I still don't know how the debate will end".
In connection with the "Silvio Berlusconi affair", Mr Amato was asked by a journalist who wanted to know whether the constitutional treaty would contain legal provisions that would allow Member States or Community institutions to envisage a "more appropriate reaction" on the ideas expressed on Wednesday by the Acting President of the European Council with regard to an MEP. Mr Amato considered that, "This is a political problem more than a legal problem" , before insisting that, "This is a very unfortunate accident, which should never have happened". He explained that European citizens now were awaiting and hoping that this incident would not have an impact on the work of the Community institutions. Asked about the relative "silence" observed by Romano Prodi, Mr Amato answered, "I imagine that he had the same reasons as I did. Let us go beyond this. Asked by the journalist whether this proved the need to establish a permanent President of the European Council, Mr Amato replied that, "It does not in any case, prove the contrary". Alluding to the rhythm of the work to the press, Mr Amato pointed our that the signing of the constitutional treaty was expected in May 2004, then there will be rectifications and he considered that these should be concluded towards the middle of 2006. He remarked that at that time, the problem of the provisions on the European Minister of Affairs would be raised (considered as one of the important advances in the draft Constitution by the Convention), which have to enter into force straight away or it will have to wait till 2009. The public will certainly be disappointed if there is a long wait but the creation of a Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is at the same time European Commission Vice President, when the Commission in place will be that foreseen in the treaty of Nice (one Commissioner per Member State) will also raise problems.