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Europe Daily Bulletin No. 8961
THE DAY IN POLITICS / (eu) ep/constitution/greens

Voggenhuber suggests ditching part III of Constitution and launching broad dialogue on Union policy

Brussels, 03/06/2005 (Agence Europe) - The French “no” to the European Constitution is not a rejection of the “constitutional process” which is “irreversible”, a small group of journalists was told on Friday by Austrian MEP Johannes Voggenhuber, a very active member of the Convention which drew up the draft Constitutional Treaty. Joking with the journalists, the MEP pointed out that the Swiss Constitution (of 1848) was finally adopted after several fruitless attempts by a decision to count abstentions from the cantons as “yes” votes… More seriously, Mr Voggenhuber stressed: we must not “kill” the Constitution, but account must be taken of the “revolt” of the French and Dutch citizens - a revolt for which the governments are primarily responsible, he said. In his view, it would be possible to “detach” the Constitution from part III on policies: in any case, he pointed out, the governments did not allow the members of the Convention to touch these policies, and the real work of the Convention was on parts I and II. This would be a “great relief”, said the MEP, who proposed that subsequently, a broad “democratic” dialogue on these policies should be launched, in order to eliminate contradictions which exist between the two first parts and the third. For example, the first part talks of full employment, the third does not.

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