Strasbourg, 04/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - At the European Parliament on Wednesday, a short debate followed speeches by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Romano Prodi, Gianfranco Fini and Franco Frattini on the IGC (see yesterday's EUROPE, pp 5-7). The Parliament will give its opinion on the convening of the IGC, and pronounce itself on the results of the Convention in the field of the institutions at the plenary to be held from 22 to 25 September, adopting the Gil Robles-Tsatsos report, but, according to Inigo Mendez de Vigo (Partido Popular), the Parliament has already found, in the Convention's text, answers to demands going back to the 1990s on democracy, efficiency and transparency. The Spanish MEP feels that Parliament's job is not to criticise the Convention's work, but to take a "political" position on its text. We must ask to become the guardians of this Constitutions, he said. Social Democrat Klaus Hänsch, Mr Mendez de Vigo's fellow member of the Praesidium of the Convention, finds the text to be examined by the IGC "well thought-out, balanced, achievable": not 100% satisfactory, but a coherent compromise. Mr Hänsch had some harsh words on the European Commission: I cannot understand, he said, why it wants to go along with those who are trying so hard to find a better compromise that they risk "ending up with Nice II". We discussed everything you are talking about in the Convention, he told Romano Prodi, inviting him to "drop these games", if it is not his wish to destroy everything the Convention has thus far achieved.
Within the EP political groups, nobody is contesting the fact that the Convention has made major progress: and all or almost all have nothing but praise for the method followed. It is no secret, admitted Hans-Gert Pöttering, chairman of EPP-ED, that there are differences in "accent" between the EPP and British Conservatives, but we all want a non-centralised Europe, with clearly-defined competencies. The CDU MEP therefore welcomed the guarantee for the principle of subsidiarity in the Convention text. Speaking French and then Italian effortlessly, Socialist group chairman Enrique Baron congratulated Valéry Giscard d'Estaing on the choice of the tortoise, symbol of perseverance, for the Convention's work, which is the first constitutional experiment above nation-State level. During his work, the Convention President quoted Montesquieu, and the funeral oration of Pericles, texts which strike a chord with many Europeans, and which, according to Mr Baron, illustrate all that unites them. Mr Baron showed understanding for Romano Prodi's requests for improvement of the draft Constitution. He also asked Mr Fini and Mr Frattini to be true to their word: allow the Parliament to take part in the IGC's work, do not make it into a closed shop, with everybody standing outside waiting for the white smoke. The Liberals support the Convention text, despite its shortcomings, said their chairman, Graham Watson, who feels that another Convention should be convened if the Constitution was to be amended (but, at the same time, asked for the Constitution not to be changed every five years...). What counts for him is fidelity to the spirit of the Convention; if it is changed, it should be decided upon in transparency. Time is short and must be used to "sell" the Constitution to the citizens, he said. Francis Wurtz, chairman of GUE/NGL group, said that on no account should the people's freedom to choice their own model of society be curtailed; revision should therefore be a possibility. Mr Wurtz blasted what he called the "constitutionalisation" of the model for a liberal Europe creeping "stealthily" in with the adoption of many articles of the Constitution. We have not obtained as much as we could have, said co-chairman of Greens/ALE Monica Frassoni, but it is clear that the European constitutional process has not finished, and that we must fight on to make sure that our positive results are not called into question by countries that did not want them and to envisage future alterations. The skill of the midwife cannot hide the congenital deformity of the new-born, said Charles Pasqua for the Union for the Europe of Nations group, saying that if there is a Constitution, it should proceed from the sole constituting power, the sovereign people, who should also ratify it. The Convention Members would have done better to draw inspiration from Rousseau rather than Montesquieu, said French Sovereignist William Abitbol, convinced that a revolution (economic and social, political, cultural) should have preceded the drafting of a Constitution, otherwise the citizens would have no affinity with it. Surely not, countered another sovereignist, Georges Berthu, if we end up with the European super-State the Convention seems to aspire to. Andrew Duff, British Liberal, disagreed: if the compromise is "unravelled", the result with be "less than ideal". Therefore a "reasonable" plan is needed to imagine what should be done if the entry into fore of the Treaty is "thwarted, accidentally or by design".
Belgian Socialist Jean-Maurice Dehousse said that he was "shocked" by Mr Prodi's intervention, exclaiming that whereas the Commission had taken part in the final Convention consensus, its President then decided to "disparage" its draft, "thus disavowing Commissioners Barnier and Vitorio". He was also angry that "President Prodi is thus encouraging the governments of Member States that also participated in the consensus but which was currently and shamelessly questioning their position on the matter". Democratici di sinistra MEP, Pasqualina Napoletano pointed out that in this debate Italy had "spoken with two European voices". The MEP announced that they considered that the commitments made by Messrs Fini and Frattini were binding and that they remain loyal to Italy's pro-European tradition and refuse any "backdowns" on the Convention draft. He also said that they were encouraging the Presidency to work towards obtaining further "improvements" to the draft.
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing reply
Convention President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was keen to answer his interlocutors, particularly Mr Prodi, who was seeking more progress on taxation. Six countries have place an insurmountable barrier on the matter and even two visits to London and meetings with other Prime Ministers proved fruitless, admitted Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. He said that he would have at least liked to have got a market based taxation but regretted that they had not wanted this. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, however, pointed out that there had been a "small step" in the right direction (concerning administrative cooperation, the fight against fraud and tax evasion). In the context of the extension of qualified majority voting, the President of the Convention pointed to a "central innovation", Article 24 in the draft treaty , which would allow the transfer of a certain number of laws into the field of qualified majority voting. On the issue of the Commission's composition, he explained that even the new Member States, initially very sensitive on this point, were assured by the idea that reform would not apply until 2009. Another crucial point, future revisions. Some wanted to bring it up at the Convention but Valéry Giscard d'Estaing explained that they did not have a mandate to do so and the problem remains pending in the future. VGE thought that it would be necessary to look at what could "become the next Constitutional revision".
VGE was also keen to assure Francis Wurtz on the nature of the Union. Although Article 3 mentions a free area, it also mentions a social market economy aiming to achieve full employment and social progress, combating social exclusion. In connection with the articles on economic policies that could have been introduced "clandestinely" into the treaty, VGE explained that this did not involve new drafts but existing texts that had had to be adapted to take into account institutional modifications.
Responding to Mr Pasqua, the President of the Convention said that the Convention had recalled what had happened in France during the drafting of the Constitution in the Fifth Republic in 1958. The draft was composed by "appointed people" but the people ratified it: it's the ratification that counts.
VGE said to William Abitbol that he was a revolutionary and he needed to be but that they would have preferred to have made a legal revolution or as Enrique Baron had said produce, "Montesquieu on a continental scale".