Brussels, 17/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - The three EP representatives at the IGC: Elmar Brok (EPP-ED), Andrew Duff (ALDE) and Enrique Baron Crespo (PES), left on Wednesday afternoon for Lisbon with a few concerns and demands in their luggage that they wanted to raise with heads of state and government. The demands involve: the Ioannina compromise. The EP opposes Poland's demand to include this mechanism in the treaty or in a protocol to the treaty, as in both cases, this purely political declaration of 1994 would be transformed into primary law that could only be amended through a new revision to the treaty. MEPs also argue that strengthening the Ioannina clause legally would complicate and slow down the decision-making process and subsequently reduce the EU's capacity to take action; protection of personal data in the area of foreign and security policy. Concerned about the role of the European Court of Justice and EP in this domain, MEPs are opposing the current rehash of Article 24 in the EU treaty. They believe that parliamentary and legal supervision is essential in such sensitive areas and want provisions on this subject to be modified; Charter of fundamental rights. The EP is concerned about the British and Polish derogations about the consequences of a non-uniform application of European law in the field of fundamental rights. MEPs are proposing that at least a mechanism be included to enable the British and Poles to renounce this exemption clause unilaterally, namely without having to call for another IGC and having to go through ratification procedure. The same clause could be applied to other exemption protocols, such as that for Schengen; appointment of the High Representative for Union foreign and security policy. The EP wants to be fully involved in the appointment of the HR. There is therefore no question of having an HR who has not had a hearing at the EP because he/she would also be the vice president of the Commission. In order to take the balance of political forces into account resulting from the 2009 European elections, the EP is therefore demanding that the new HR is not nominated when the new treaty enters into force (beginning of 2009, in principle), but afterwards during the reshuffling of the European Commission in autumn 2009, following the European elections. Until then the current situation is expected to be maintained; distribution of seats at the EP. The EP is against raising the ceiling of 750 MEPs, for example by finding an additional margin that may satisfy Italy, which is requesting the same number of MEPs as the United Kingdom and France. Brok and Duff stressed that going above 750 MEPs would put the efficiency of the Assembly into question. They pointed out that the defunct constitutional treaty only planned on having 732 seats. (H.B)