Brussels, 28/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European People's Party (EPP) will hold its 17th Congress, to be attended by fifteen Prime Ministers and over 1000 delegates from the 25 EU Member States and the candidate countries, in Rome on 30 and 31 March. The Congress, entitled “Our aim, our Europe”, will be chaired by Wilfried Martens and coincides with the 30th anniversary of the EPP. Among those taking part will be the President of the European Council Wolfgang Schüssel, Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi and the President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso. Congress is due to adopt a “Rome Manifesto”, called “For a Europe of citizens: priorities for a better future” which will speak of a Europe of values and will argue for “clear priorities” for the EU: making Europe more innovative, able to create more jobs and economic growth; giving the EU the means and instruments to better protect its citizens; strengthening Europe's role in the world; supporting sustainable development and protection of the environment; strengthening social cohesion. The manifesto will also argue for a more democratic and more transparent Europe, for policies that are more understandable to citizens, for better working of the institutions and for less bureaucracy.
The EPP is expected to re-state its support for the proposed European Constitution. “The EPP is convinced that it was the right decision to draft a Constitutional Treaty as a new basis for the European Union. We want the achievements and reforms proposed by the Constitutional Treaty to become reality, in order to make the European Union work in a more transparent, democratic and efficient way. This will increase the support of the European Union among its citizens,” says the draft text. The failure of the referendums in France and the Netherlands were not simply “accidental” but reflected rather “a tendency that is growing stronger in many European Union states” and that “is partly linked to the fact that national governments do not sufficiently highlight the benefits of the European Union to their citizens,” says the EPP. To increase public support for European integration, it is fundamental to explain to citizens what “a common European identity” means, the Manifesto goes on. It states, “The debate on the borders of Europe is at the heart of our common European identity”. The EPP argues for a balance between enlargement and consolidation: following the accession of Romania and Bulgaria, the EU should be reformed before any further enlargement can take place. Furthermore, any future enlargement should take account of the EU's absorption capacity, says the text. The EPP also takes up the idea from the Elmar Brok report, approved by the EP, which argues for “multilateral solutions” to offer to countries which cannot or do not wish to become members of the EU. According to the draft text, this multilateral solution could be a “common economic area”, more ambitious, however, than the current European Economic Area (EEA), in particular providing for close political consultation in areas such as justice and home affairs, foreign policy and joint security and external border control.
The Congress will be preceded on 29 and 30 March in Rome by Study Days for the 264 members of the EPP-ED European Parliamentary group, led by Hans-Gert Pöttering.