Row looms over structure for constitution

Date: 24/10/02

By Dana Spinant

THE Convention on the future of Europe is heading for its most heated debate yet, as Valéry Giscard d'Estaing prepares to unveil the structure of the EU's expected constitutional treaty.

The Convention chairman is likely to face controversy when he presents the outline this Monday (28 October) because some members claim the draft makes political choices.

Two elements of the draft, which was discussed by the praesidium last week, are particularly disputed: the reference to a Congress of Europe's peoples and theso-called ratification clause.

The latter implies that if a country fails to ratify the constitutional treaty, it may be kicked out of the Union.

The 15-page document envisages a treaty in two parts, with the first outlining a preamble, a definition of the Union, its objectives and powers, the institutions, decision-making procedures and the instruments used by the Union to carry out its tasks.

The second part would refer to the Union's policies, such as the Common Agricultural Policy, competition or justice and home affairs policies.

However, a third section might be added. This could, for example, include the ratification clause, articles stating when the treaty would enter into force or languages in which the treaty is translated.

After the initial discussion in the praesidium, Giscard adapted the outline, which was set to be discussed again tonight (Thursday) and on Monday, before the Convention's plenary.

Although the first draft is considered a good starting point to kick off the debate on the treaty's 'architecture', members of the praesidium contested some points.

Denmark's representative Henning Christophersen and John Bruton, the former Irish prime minister, opposed the ratification clause. However, the two were isolated over this issue.

According to one Convention insider, the sketch of the treaty will have to contain a clause on ratification, but this will probably be general at this stage. Further discussions in the Convention will be needed to solve this delicate problem.

A reference to the Congress, the institution gathering MEPs and national MPs, sparked protests from representatives of the European Parliament on the praesidium. Iñigo Méndez de Vigo and Klaus Hänsch disagreed with Giscard over the way the institutions are presented in the outline.

Although they do not dispute the idea of the Congress as such, they claim that if the institution proposed by Giscard is mentioned, then other proposals on new institutions aired in the Convention should equally be included.

Otherwise, MEPs say, by making a selection the sketch would make a choice which has not been sanctioned yet by the Convention.

'The objective is to mirror the present debate in this first outline, therefore we will revise it to include the present discussion on the presidency,' one insider confirmed.

In parallel, the Convention's working group on economic governance concluded that the EU should have greater tax harmonisation and the Growth and Stability Pact should be boosted.

The group, led by Hänsch, has been split over the scope of such changes and struggled to reach an accord on reforms of the EU's economic policy.

The conclusions will be discussed in the Convention's plenary in November, and risk sparking an unprecedented rift among those pushing for more powers over economic policy for Brussels, and those insisting on the status quo.

Convention chairman Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is due to unveil the structure of the EU's expected constitutional treaty on 28 October 2002.

http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/sessPlen/00369.en2.PDF http://european-convention.eu.int/docs/sessPlen/00369.en2.PDF

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