02/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - Present at a Committee of the regions meeting on 21 July in St Jacques de Compostela to debate the future of Europe and the role of the Committee of the regions were Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and the European Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. At the meeting the EPP group adopted a declaration in which he asks that the Committee participates as a full member in the work of the body which will be tasked, after the Laeken summit, with carrying out work designed to prepare the next intergovernmental conference. Through its institutional legitimacy and its position as representative of local and regional authorities of the Union, the Committee must participate in this structure, underlines the EPP group in its declaration.