Dear Europeans,

Although there has not been a convention plenary since the last bulletin, there are several news from the convention. The key issue in the convention debate is, whether the president of the EU should be the president of the European Council or the president of the European Convention. In order to arrive to a democratic system, the federalist movements have long demanded to elect the president of the commission through the European Parliament and thus ensure a democratic control of the government of the European Union. Although the German government seems to support an elected head of the European Council, they are still demanding a strong and well legitimized European Commission. We have included the essential parts of the coalition agreement to underline these demands.

This bulletin also includes several new ideas of convention members, which have been raised in the previous two weeks. Further we report from the Latvian National Convention, which is an excellent example on how to involve the public in the convention debate.

In this edition we also want to see the convention process from the perspective of an applicant country to the European Union. The Young European Federalists Latvia have contributed three articles which give an inside in the debate that takes place in their coutry.

Further this edition includes an interesting interview with the alternate convention member from the German government, Gunter Pleuger. He was state secretary of the foreign ministry and will be the future UN-embassador of Germany.

If you would like to contribute to the next edition of the bulletin, send your contribution to info@constitutional-convention.net (deadline for the 16th issue is 27th October). As usual, you can see all articles of this Bulletin in full length on the Youth Convention Homepage: www.constitional-convention.net .

Best European greetings,

Your Editors.