Brussels, 21/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - Following Tuesday morning's debate in the constitutional committee on how to break the deadlock on the European Constitution, the Chairman of this parliamentary committee, Giorgio Napolitano (Democratici di sinistra) has written to President Cox, asking him to support and include on the agenda of the forthcoming Chairmen's Conference relaunch initiatives to be taken very soon, and which met with "a broad consensus" among MEPs. According to Mr Napolitano's letter, the constitutional committee "strongly supported the reasons for such urgency, expressing the conviction that if the Constitutional process was to be suspended until after the European Parliament elections, the Convention's draft may well be sidelined and the process of drawing up a Constitution for Europe would have to start again from scratch, and nobody knows how long it could take". The constitutional committee proposes the following course of action:
during the session of 28 and 29 January in Brussels, the adoption of a "short and clear resolution supporting the Irish Presidency's efforts to relaunch the work of the intergovernmental conference, and to reiterate the European Parliament's support of the Convention's draft";
"as of February, to organise two hearings of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, with the involvement of the President and Vice-President of the European Convention (Giscard d'Estaing, Amato and Dehaene), and of the European Commission's representatives to the Convention (Barnier and Vitorino), plus representatives of the national parliaments";
calling "a meeting before the European Council of 25-26 March 2004, with the widest possible base, between the European Parliament (Constitutional Affairs Committee) and representatives of the national parliaments- including former Convention members- in order to go into greater detail and to clarify the fundamental themes and specific problems on which there was disagreement during the European Council of 12-13 December";
sending "delegations from the Constitutional Affairs Committee to meet the national parliaments of certain Member States and acceding countries, to contribute to the success of the Irish Presidency's mission".