- President Giscard d’Estaing has presented his first draft proposals for a constitutional treaty. What are your first views on the document?

My first reaction is a favourable one: the presidium has produced a scheme – someone called it a skeleton which is wrong – it is a scheme which contains all the factors and elements that a constitutional treaty should contain. It also makes the proposal of separating the constitutional clauses from the policies of the Union, which is also a wise decision because this opens the way to different revision clauses and ratification clauses. Obviously the document is an indication of chapters and headings rather than of the contents, which remains open, but little by little we will fill it in.

We are currently discussing the place in the constitutional treaty of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Obviously there are various options in this scheme that has been presented, but it seems to me that a large majority of the members of the Convention want the Charter, one way or another, to be inserted in the treaty. Whether that is to recall the Charter and then add it in a protocol, or insert it entirely in the constitutional treaty, we will see what will prevail. I personally think it is sufficient for the constitutional treaty to make a reference to the Charter and then have the Charter annexed to the treaty as a protocol which will have legal force.

- The document proposes a structure with the content still missing, but there are already some indications of the direction already included, such as the assumption of a single institutional framework, which were not clear at the beginning. What do you think about this?

It is a very positive sign, and in this regard the work of the working group on legal personality has allowed us to make a step forwards to a single legal personality for the European Union itself, which has opened the way to the different things we are discussing now. Very positive.

- There is no indication of the direction in some areas, notably on institutions, although there are certain aspects which might be revealing, such as the inclusion of the European Council as an institution, and this idea of a Congress of Peoples. What are your thoughts on these matters?

The work methods chosen by the Convention are that first we have to decide the missions and then the competences, and then only after decide who does what. I think it is the right approach. We will come to the question of the distribution of powers between the triangle of the three institutions later on. One thing is already certain – that is that the co-decision mechanism will be extended to all legislation, to all legislative acts of the Commission and therefore of the Council. Not only that, all of the budget, including budgetary provisions, will have to be approved in co-decision by the European Parliament. This is already clear. It is too early to say what kind of balance might prevail between the enhanced powers which are requested by some for the President of the European Council, and the Commission; too early to say how this is going to work out. The idea of having a permanent President of the Council that will be the voice of Europe as some have indicated, that is to say a President of the Council that sits permanently in Brussels and speaks for Europe, has not been introduced in the Convention yet. Several countries, and several large countries, have proposed this idea but it has not entered the Convention yet. When it will enter the Convention then the discussion will start, and at that point we would see that most likely the smaller countries are likely to be opposed to this idea, because they see in the rotating six-month presidency a possibility of equal treatment of all countries large, and small. So there will be that strong resistance. It is too early to say what will be the outcome.

The idea of merging the two positions of the presidency of the Council and the presidency of the Commission may also gain ground. This has already been introduced in the Convention, and has received some backing, and in the process of simplification of the mechanisms and making them more democratic and giving them an additional legitimacy, I think that would be the ultimate kind of solution. I am not in a position to say whether we will go in that direction or if it will prevail.

The idea of a Congress of the Parliaments, national parliaments and the European Parliament, is very much an idea to give the presidency of the European Council more legitimacy. To have the person who is chosen to have the blessing of a large body which represents the people of Europe. That is the Congress.

- Surely that is a job which could be done by the European Parliament?

The European Parliament is not sufficiently representative of all the citizens, and national parliaments are – that is why I put it in the plural when I talk to you, national parliaments and the European Parliament. You would need a large body, just to give you a number, a body of 1000 delegates, not less than that. If you want to have legitimacy, that has to come from the people. You cannot take all the members of the national parliaments and the European parliament and put them all together, it would be like the Chinese People’s Assembly, but certainly something larger than today’s COSAC or today’s European Parliament.

- Do you not think that this runs the risk of creating yet another institution?

No, we do not want to create another institution. This should be a procedure. In certain national constitutions, the President of the Republic in parliamentary republics is elected by both chambers in a joint meeting in which the presidents of the regions and provinces are also participating. So this would be something similar to that. We have therefore examples in national constitutions, and which give a strong legitimacy.

- What are your views on the section on competences?

The exclusive competences will remain very few and they are already there. With the disappearance of the three pillars there will be some matters which are currently in the third pillar which will certainly become a responsibility of the Commission, I have in mind internal affairs, but particularly immigration and asylum. It seems to me that a strong consensus is emerging that Europe must have a single policy on these issues. Then there is the question of the second pillar, that is to say the external and security policies, and that will become a competence of the Union but the exercise of that competence is likely to remain in the Council, certainly not in the Commission. Europe is not ready for that yet.

- What is your view of the general reaction in the Convention so far to this document?

There was no applause on Monday, but now we start the discussion. I think there will be a strong backing for this document. The document cannot be attacked because it does not enter into controversial issues as yet.

- At the beginning of the Convention process, merely the idea of a “Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe” was itself highly controversial.

A year ago yes, but no longer. This indicates how much progress this Convention is making on so many issues. The constitutional treaty, including in the constitutional treaty in one way or another the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for example. I was in the European Council when this matter was discussed, and there was no question that Heads of Governments would accept to give legal status to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and now it seems to me that it is already in it, one way or another. So we are going ahead. The Convention will be imaginative in the end, and according to the objective of the Convention itself and especially that of its President, Giscard d’Estaing, will produce a design for the future of Europe which will last many years to come.

- One test will be how this document is received by national governments. In the British press, for example, there has been a lot of attention given to the proposed name changes, but the general constitutional approach seems to have been accepted. What is your view of this?

Jack Straw has also spoken in favour of a constitutional treaty. Views may differ however, as to the contents of a constitutional treaty, and there will be those countries that will want to minimise the competences, not only the exclusive ones but also those which are concurrent, shared, competences. There will be those who want to have very few and those who will want to have very many. Differences will emerge. Let’s see what kind of balance there will be.

- What do you think about changing the name of the EU?

On the name: European Union seems to me to be fine. I do not see why it should be changed, but certainly United States of Europe would be inspiring to our citizens. I am not sure that everyone would agree to this but it would be inspiring. Why not United States of Europe – because it gives too much of a sense of federalism? The European construction is a unique model, it has its federal aspects, its national aspect, and its intergovernmental aspects, so it is a unique construction and one should not be hung up on how you are going to call it. United Europe in Italian does not sound good, in English maybe it is slightly better, but I do not find it appealing at all. So we keep what we have if we cannot make the jump to the United States of Europe.

- You mentioned earlier the possibility of different ratification and amendment procedures. Many people are now talking about a referendum on a constitutional text. Would you be in favour?

If it would be possible to have a European referendum, I would be in favour. A single referendum for all the citizens of Europe, yes, but to have referendums in single countries it depends on the internal institutional set-up. Obviously the next step – approval, ratification of the constitutional treaty, because it will be a single treaty – will have to be unanimous. We need unanimity. The great hope and expectation is that there will be no countries which will make us worry – whether or not the Ireland of tomorrow is going to ratify or not ratify. That will be for this time, then for the future we have to get away from the possibility that a small country, or any single country, can block any progress in the construction of Europe. So the exclusion clause and the secession clause are badly needed.

- You seem very optimistic about the prospects for a good result from the Convention, and for this result to be acceptable to the European Council.

I am very encouraged by the work of the Convention, because it has made strides, it has gone much further than one would have expected. Of course we have not yet come to the nitty-gritty as yet, which is the distribution of powers between the different bodies, the different institutions of the Union. When we come to that we will see. But here the Convention is not dominated by member governments. President Giscard d’Estaing has asked the representatives of the governments in the Convention to be more active and present, and to express more clearly their views than they have done so far, because in the end, the end product will have to go into the intergovernmental conference. But this is a body which extracts its democratic nature by the presence by a large majority of members of parliaments – national parliaments and members of the European parliament. And this is the beauty of the Convention. And it seems to me also having listened to the Civil Society hearings, and the Youth Convention, that people want more Europe, not less Europe. Less Europe only to have a Europe which is not pervasive, which is not trespassing when it comes to exercise the legal prerogatives of concurrent competences. There have been excesses in the past, but now with the new mechanism that is being created concerning the principle of subsidiarity and its application, we will go a long way to prevent trespassing by the European Union, and therefore to avoid the EU not respecting the principle of subsidiarity.

- You said that there was some concern that the national governments were not engaged enough. Do you think that the decision by the German government to propose Joschka Fischer is a sign that this may change?

President Giscard d’Estaing expressed this concern at the Heads of Governments meeting in Brussels. The appointment of Joschka Fischer is very positive. Germany had been engrossed in the electoral process, and now that this is over I expect that Germany will want to pull its own weight in the Convention, and I think that this is good.

- What are the next steps? Where do we go next?

To fill the constitutional treaty we have to wait for the results of the working groups on different issues, including the important one on simplification for example, and the one on foreign security and defence policy. Once the working groups have presented their conclusions to the Convention, we will be able to see what kind of consensus can emerge. On the basis of that consensus we will start filling the different sections and chapters.

- Do you expect the Convention to stick to the original timetable?

Yes, we must try to respect the target date which has been set by President Giscard d’Estaing, and that is June next year. We should not go beyond that, and it would be only if there was the reasonable certainty that a stronger design might emerge by prolonging the work of the Convention by one or two months, but not otherwise.

Interview conducted on 29 October 2002 by Alison Weston, contact alison.weston@jef-europe.net