In the convention plenary on the 7th and 8th November, the convention members mainly discussed three issues: the structure of the future constitution, the report of the working group "economic governance" and the report of the working group "complementary competences".

GISCARD'S SCELETON IS MISSING ONE LEG
Since there were too many speakers in the previous convention session that wanted to comment on the draft structure of the constitution, Valéry Giscard D’Estaing allowed the remaining speakers from that session to take the floor. The main response to the draft was similar to that of the previous speakers. Olivier Duhamel put the opinion of many convention members in strong words: "If you listened properly, then give up the Congress". He accused Giscard of telling a press conference that there was a majority in the convention demanding a congress, whereas the clear majority of the convention is against such a new institution. He appealed to Giscard to listen to him and shortly later, Johannes Voggenhuber asked Giscard to listen to all convention members. Also convention member Kiljunen mentioned that the draft structure of the constitution leaves out several proposals that are consensus in the convention, whereas it includes other issues not discussed.

Farnleitner positively mentioned that since the proposal has been presented, the public interest has increased and that more and more smart Europeans want to contribute to the discussion by filling Giscard's proposal with content.

Joschka Fischer – without doubt one of the most respected convention members as there was complete silence when he spoke - welcomed the draft but also stressed that the double legitimacy of the Union, through the citizens and through the states, has to be one of the guiding principles of the constitution. On this point, Voggenhuber has stated that Giscard's skeleton is one-legged. It is a Union of states, but the Union of citizens is missing. The Austrian Green MEP further underlined that the convention should not only work on the first and third part of the constitution, but should also fully elaborate the second part of the constitution. He asked the convention presidium to work out a first draft for the second part and got support in this question from other convention members.

Also the institutional questions were discussed in the follow up on the constitution structure. Fischer emphasised again that that a strong parliament and a strong commission, whose president should be elected by the European Parliament. He added that under these conditions, one could think about an elected president of the council. Nevertheless, said Fischer, there should not be two Unions, one intergovernmental, the other integrated. Voggenhuber also criticised the reference to a president of the council. His demand to remove these two articles in the draft was followed by applause from many convention members. Also Jürgen Meyer said that it is not necessary to have two presidents of the Union. He pleaded for a Commission president elected by the European Parliament. If there has to be a president of the Council, he/she should be the counterbalance to the President of the European Parliament.

Söderman, the Ombudsman of the European Union, stressed that the position of the ombudsman is a creation of the European Union, which has been copied in many countries all over the world. He mentioned that he had to deal with 10000 complaints of European citizens and requested the inclusion the position of an ombudsperson into the Constitution.

Meyer said that the wording "constitutional treaty" should not be used. Instead it should be a constitution, since this is something the citizens in Europe can understand. Another demand from Fischer, again following previous speakers in the convention, was to include the Charter fully in the constitution

CHRISTOPEHERSEN'S WORKING GROUP ON COMPLEMETARY COMPETENCES

The fact that Christophersen presented the longest final report in plenary and in written form already showed the complexity of this working group. He specified the leading question of the working group which needed seven daylong sessions to complete its tasks as being "Who does what?". The working group based its work on the existing treaties and the group decided to not change any vocabulary, but to use the old denomination.
He started his speech stressing that the role of the European Parliament should not be weakened, no competences will be renationalized and no competences will be intergovernmentalized. Further he mentioned that the working group did not allocate the different competences, but decided to clarify the existing competences. He said that further work in the field of competences will depend largely on the results of the working group of Amato on simplification.
After these more general comments he said that the role of the European Parliament should be strengthened and that its legislation should cover all areas. Nevertheless, he stressed that this was his personal opinion and has not been discussed in the working group, as such a discussion was not the mandate of the working group. He stressed that the new constitution needs a new chapter on competences, since even lawyers can hardly understand the existing allocation. He said that in the first part of the constitution there should be some articles on what the Union can do, whereas the more technical details on the competences should be included in the second part of the constitution. Further he mentioned that the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and the principles of solidarity and general interest have to be included in the Constitution.
Really important for Christophersen was to mention that we should not focus on things that have to stay with the member states, but that we should see that we are together because many things can be done better on the Union level.
A quite important decision of the working group was to recommend keeping the Art. 308 (simplified explanation: which allows the Union to take up fields of politics, when they are not in their competence but stand in connection with the internal market) in the treaty but to change it into a flexibility clause. There was no consensus on this question in the working group, since there were also convention members in favour of deleting that article and some in favour of leaving it unchanged. Another issue on which the working group could not find a consensus was whether to change the phrase "an ever closer Union" or whether to leave it the way it is.

In the discussion there were many speakers that spoke against a catalogue of competences as well as a list of competences and mentioned that this was consensus in the convention in the general discussion in the first half of this year. Nevertheless there were no alternative proposals. Accept for one convention member that was unhappy about the name "complementary competences", the majority of the convention members seemed to agree on the division into the three categories "exclusive Union competence", "Competences shared" and "areas in which the Union supports or co-ordinates action by the Member States" (naming in the constitution structure draft).

Fischer asked the convention to find a better and clearer formulation for the principle of subsidiarity. He also said that constituent regions should have the right of action at the European Court of Justice.

As well as in the working group, there was no clear consensus in the plenary on the Article 308. Whereas Teufel said, that this article is dispensable if there is a clear division of competences, many other convention members spoke in favour of keeping a flexibility clause, which should not be limited to the internal market, but should be extended to all policies.
Lamassoure responded to the report that the goal of the convention is not to complicate things, but to simplify them and he asked his colleagues to come back to the basics that need to be discussed.

Whereas one convention member stated that the phrase "an ever closer Union" is not necessary anymore if the convention decides to declare at the beginning of the convention that it is a Union of citizens and states, Klaus Hänsch responded: "Instead of talking about an ever closer Union, we should say what already many wanted to say in Maastricht: Federal Union!".

CONTROVERSIAL DEBATE ON ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE

The work of the working group on "Economic governance" was as hard as the work of the working group on complementary competences. The results were again not welcomed by a majority of the convention members, as it was the case for reports of other working groups.

The recommendation of the working group is to maintain the status quo. Monetary policy should be a Union competence whereas economic policy will remain a competence of the member states. Nevertheless the working group agreed that there has to be a stronger co-ordination of the policies in the field of economic policy. Further there should be an enhanced involvement of the national parliaments in this field of politics.
Some convention members were in favour of having macroeconomic policies in the competence of the Union, in order to guarantee economic growth, full employment and social cohesion. Further the group discussed whether the dialogue with the social partners should be mentioned in the constitution; without finding a consensus.

Whereas the majority of the group spoke in favour of maintaining the tasks, the mandate and the statute of the European Central Bank (ECB), some spoke in favour to enlarge the mandate of the ECB and include growth and employment.

Further the working group proposed to change the procedures in the field of economic policy and to give the European Parliament a stronger role. Another recommendation was to change the stability pact in a way, that the first warning concerning too high public deficits should be issued by the commission and that concerned member states should not have a voting right, when the council decides on further actions.
Further the group recommended a stronger harmonisation of taxes in some fields.

Further the group mentioned that the Euro-Group will be more important shortly after the enlargement and that the group should be maintained, at least on an informal basis. Another discussion in the group - without coming to a consensus - focused on the question "who would be the official representation of the Euro-Group in international institutions, the Commission or the head of the Euro-Group?"

Again the discussion on this group was rather controversial. Main criticism was that the convention is meant to move forward and not stick to the status quo.

The discussion in the plenary was supposed to be split in two parts: the report of the group on economic governance and a discussion about the "social Europe" as this was closely linked to the work of the group, but was neither part of the mandate nor feasible to discuss the issue in the short timeframe of the group. As the discussion on the first part took longer than planned, there was no time left for any discussion on a social Europe. Since many convention members demanded the creation of a working group on "social Europe" (and already many NGOs demanded this, as reported in the constitutional-convention bulletin earlier) Giscard concluded the discussion with promising that he would suggest the presidium to set up such a group. Whether this will lead to a creation of a third wave of working groups, or whether it will stay the only additional working group is still open.

By Jan Kreutz, Vice-President JEF-Europe
Contact: jan.kreutz@jef-europe.net

- FINAL REPORT OF THE WORKING GROUP VI "ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE"

To read the report see:
http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/02/cv00/00375-r1en2.pdf