Brussels, 04/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Irish Presidency has put together a working document of 130 pages ahead of the technical meeting of 4 May in Dublin, which is supposed to clear the way pending the re-launch of the Intergovernmental Conference at Foreign Minister level, in Brussels on 17 and 18 May. In its introduction, the Irish Presidency states that this document contains no proposal on issues related to the scope of qualified majority voting.
This document takes up several documents included in the document post-Naples. The Presidency seems to be trying to get all delegations to confirm their agreement on the various points, some of which had been contested in the past. There follows a brief summary of the changes proposed by the Council: -to article I-5, the first sentence would specify that "the Union shall respect the equality of the Member States before the Constitution"; -to article -46, it will be stated that European law which lays down modalities for citizen initiatives must provide for the number of citizens required to belong to a minimum number of States; -to article I-23, it is proposed to set up a collegial Presidency of 18 months, made up of all the formations of the Council except the one for Foreign Affairs, with an equal rotation between the States in question at the head of all configurations for a period of six months; -to article III-197 (3), it is specified that "the organisation and functioning of the European service for external action are fixed by a European decision by the Council on proposal by the Union Foreign Minister"; -to article III-217, the unanimity provided for decisions on trade negotiations for services (as the Naples text referred only to services involving movement of persons) and trade aspects of intellectual property is extended to foreign direct investment; -to article III-116 (cohesion policy), the Irish Presidency proposes that a reference to industrial conversion areas be introduced; -to article III-179, it proposes to include measures on surveillance, early warning and the fight against serious threats to health potentially affecting more than one Member State to the scope of the European law or the European framework law; the Presidency also wants a reference to the need to protect public health in terms of tobacco and alcohol abuse; -article I-7 will read: "The Union shall accede (instead of "will work towards accession") to the European Convention on human rights"; -to article III-49, it is proposed, as part of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, to reduce the recourse to European law for the establishment of penalties (freezing of assets and other administrative measures) to the fight against terrorism (the previous text provided for a more general recourse to European law, with particular reference to organised crime and trafficking in human beings).