Brussels, 21/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday Elmar Brok (EPP), co-rapporteur at the European Parliament, together with Enrique Crespo Baron (PES), on the EU's constitutional process, presented a working document to journalists, which contains the main orientations in the future report to be sent for a vote by MEPs in the next few weeks (the exact date has not been set yet). The working document illustrates the “growing importance” of providing the EU with instruments included in the Constitutional Treaty and appeals for the substance of the current text to be preserved, while taking into account difficulties existing in the Netherlands and France and other countries, by adding new elements to the text (Treaty+), such as climate change, energy security, immigration, social dimension, economic governance in the eurozone etc. But above all, Brok and Baron Crespo are demanding the June European Council to adopt a “clear mandate” for arranging a “short” intergovernmental conference (IGC) under the Portuguese presidency in the second half of 2007. Brok insists that it will only be by concluding the IGC in December 2007 that member states will have the necessary time for ratifying the new treaty in 2008, so that it can enter into force by the time of the 2009 European elections. Brok underlined the fact that the mandate from the June European Council should clearly “limit the IGC's room for manoeuvre: no question of reopening parts I and II of the draft Constitutional Treaty, by, for example, modifying the double majority decision-making system (as requested by Poland) because “this would open up a Pandora's box”. The EP rapporteur warned that if this happened, the Convention result (which prepared the Constitutional Treaty) would be threatened, and the European Parliament would then demand a new Convention. The countries most reticent about the Constitutional Treaty (Poland, Czech Republic and the United Kingdom etc) will also have to realise that if this EU institutional reform fails, the result will be a Europe made up of a hardcore of countries that want to advance, going forward alone. “Verfassung oder Verhofstadt” (Constitution or Verhofstadt), declared Brok, sarcastically, in a reference to the Belgian prime minister's proposal to create a “United States of Europe” initially made up of eurozone countries. (hb)