Brussels, 11/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Liberal leaders, in Brussels on Thursday for their traditional preparatory meeting on the eve of the European Council (and more importantly, the IGC), affirmed their willingness to reach agreement on the Constitution of the EU this weekend. During a press release after their meeting, Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, his Danish counterpart Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, and the Chairman of the Parliament's Liberal group, Graham Watson, all insisted on the need for agreement settling all the issues which are still open, to allow the EU to "go forward". Bulgarian Prime Minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha took part in the meeting for the first time.
Stressing the fact that the Liberals have always been in favour of more European integration, the leaders said that they were "very concerned at the direction discussions on the future Constitution have taken", said Graham Watson. The Liberals, he said, want to send "a message" to France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom: "give up your red lines" to allow a positive result to the Constitution
"We need a result" but "what we need is not Nice, we must agree on a Constitution" and for that "everybody must put their national interests aside" in the interests of Europe, said Guy Verhofstadt.
His Danish opposite number, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said "we must not leave Brussels until we have concluded negotiations on a new Treaty". He feels that above all, "there should be no left-overs", so that the Treaty can be "the framework of the EU for years to come". Particularly important to Mr Rasmussen is a compromise on the European Commission, with a full-time Commissioner per country, but, in order to ensure the efficient working of the Commission, the number of portfolios could be limited and shared between several Commissioners.
"We must reach compromise, but not the lowest common denominator", said Pat Cox (see also page 6). On the option to postpone certain decisions, Mr Verhofstadt made himself quite clear: "no revision clause". Is it possible that this Council could fail? "That depends", added the Belgian Prime Minister: if the objective is "to defend national interests, then yes", otherwise "we may well reach agreement", concluded Mr Verhofstadt and Mr Rasmussen, who both welcomed progress made on the European defence policy.
Liberals do not want to start up debate on Stability Pact again
When asked about the Dutch proposal on the Stability Pact (the Netherlands think that the latest draft of the Constitution presented by Italy on Tuesday, which provides for recourse to the European Court of Justice is the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact are not respected, does not go far enough, and have suggested the possibility of recourse to justice at any stage of the procedure), the Liberals made it clear that they would not like the IGC to look at this option. "We need clarification and new instruments to apply the Stability Pact (...) but it is not a good idea to mix our work at the IGC up with the battle over the Stability Pact (...) We need a strong Stability Pact, but I am not sure that we should change the Treaty" on this point, said Mr Rasmussen.