Brussels, 17/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - French Socialist Olivier Duhamel, MEP and former Convention member stated in a "small chronicle, written in telegraphic style" that the IGC in Brussels had avoided the worst ("the constitution being buried or the draft being massacred") and that Member States had given themselves the time to allow for the Spanish elections (March 2004), European elections in June and "who knows, the Polish elections in 2005 or earlier?"
In a reference to the leaders responsible for this situation, Mr Duhamel said that the Polish "were not yet European but Thatcherites, using the veto to the bitter end"; - the Spanish: Aznar had made the calculation of the votes at the Council into "an emblematic game, thus creating, through badly placed nationalism, the point for blockage"; - the French and the Germans: Chirac and Schröder have "accumulated Franco-German arrogance" (stability pact, "a mania for unceasingly declaring themselves the driving force". And Chirac, "mainly responsible for Nice" was "rigid on everything in Brussels in the hope of not reaching a conclusion, happy to appear the super-European and to get rid of, for the instant, the question of the referendum" on the constitution; - the Italians: Berlusconi - a combination of "vulgarity and flippancy" ("I've got the magic formula", "Let's talk about football and women", mentioned at the IGC in Brussels, considering that bilateral discussions were enough"); the Commission: Prodi ("polite, the teacher, distinguished but without charisma or leadership for making good the shortcomings of the others" and who for a "long time had been more inclined to fire on the draft constitution rather than improve it or defend it". In such conditions, what is "urgent"? Olivier Duhamel says that this is not the "pioneering groups dear to the heart of Chirac" (launching groups outside the institutions would "destroy Europe" but rather efforts to "save the draft constitution", notably by way of pressure on the Irish presidency.