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INTERGROUPE
CONSTITUTION
EUROPEENNE
Save enlargement
and strive for the Constitution
The political agreement
which the EU 15 achieved with difficulty in Nice last December gave enlargement
the green light from 2003 – 2004 on. But it is a merely formal green light,
as President Prodi has rightly pointed out, with the institutions being
neither more efficient nor more democratic.
After the Irish
referendum, the European Community lingers over formal and byzantine discussions,
for fear of putting the ratification of an unsatisfactory Treaty in danger.
Forgetting that,
united, Europe could guarantee a better protection of human rights and
improved respect for the environment, be richer due to its cultural diversity,
be a world-wide example of combining globalisation and social solidarity.
Instead, it insists on denying itself the necessary means.
The only way to
avoid a dead end is to surpass Nice and pursue the two truly important
challenges : EU enlargement and the European Constitution.
We cannot let the
European agenda be paralysed by the ratification procedures of an opaque
Treaty which, as the Irish referendum has proven, is almost impossible
to defend.
We have to respect
the political commitments on enlargement and work on the necessary reforms
immediately, without waiting until 2004.
The Intergroup European
Constitution within European Parliament appeals to the Belgian Presidency
of the EU Council :
? to launch a constituent
process immediately, in order to endow the Union with the democratic institutions
it needs and which the Treaty of Nice does not give her;
? to bring about
the Member States' agreement, before December, on a new method for the
reform of the EU - a real constitutional Convention composed not only by
diplomats, but also by national and European parliamentarians and by representatives
of the Member States and of the Commission. This Convention shall be more
than a simple discussion forum : it shall draft a coherent constitutional
project.
Such is the responsibility
of the Belgian government, which takes over the Presidency of the Union
today. It has our confidence today but will be judged by its results tomorrow.
Strasbourg,
4 July 2001
Contact : Bruno
BOISSIERE +32-2.508.30.30
Steering committee
: Carlos CARNERO GONZALEZ (PSE, E), Andrew DUFF (ELDR, UK), Monica FRASSONI
(Verts, B), Alain LAMASSOURE (PPE, F), Jo LEINEN (PSE, D), Cecilia MALMSTRÖM
(ELDR, S), Mario MANTOVANI (PPE, I), Mihail PAPAYANNAKIS (GUE, GR)
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