The first day of the second meeting of the convention plenary dealt with the question of a single legal personality for the European Union. Basis for the discussion was the draft final report of the working group III "legal personality". The working group proposes to give the Union a single legal personality. In order to make the Union structure better understandable they further suggested merging the two main treaties, the Treaty of the European Union and the European Community Treaty. On the question of merging the three pillars of the Union the working group concluded, that in one single treaty the pillar structure would be obsolete, nevertheless they did not clearly suggest the merging of the three pillars.

The broad majority welcomed the results of the working group and focused on the affect of these rather technical questions for the European Union.

For most of the convention members a single legal personality for the European Union would mean that the EU could speak with one voice and would be able to act as a legal person. This includes signing international treaties, which so far only member states could do. Mr. Brok suggested for example that the European Union should join the European Convention of Human Rights. Another convention member suggested asking for a seat of the European Union in the security council of the United Nations. The only objections on a single legal personality were raised by Peter Hain and some eurosceptics, which feared that the European Union could not act on the international scene with a strong voice, if they had a single legal personality.

Concerning the question of merging the three pillars, European Communities, Foreign and Defence Policy and Justice and Home Affairs the positions were not as united. A majority seemed to be in favour of the proposal, but some convention members were afraid that this could be a hidden shift of competences to the European Union in the sphere of Foreign and Security Policy. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing tried to clarify, that the pillar structure is a way to describe the way the Union works and explains that the European Communities apply different methods than the other two pillars. Nevertheless he thinks that it would be possible to have two different methods (intergovernmental cooperation and the community method) in one single treaty and that therefore the pillar system might not be necessary. Even Mr. Brok (a well known integrationalist) admitted, that the foreign and security policy will include intergovernmental methods for a long time to come, but that this does not affect the possibility to merge the pillars. Many convention members defended their view, that the Union can only act strongly on the international scene if it has an understandable structure and if it gains democratic legitimacy.

By Jan Kreutz, contact: jan.kreutz@jef-europe.net

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- VALÈRY GISCARD D’ESTAING GIVES AN OVERVIEW ON CONVENTION PROGRESS

On Thursday the 3rd of October, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing was reporting to the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the European Parliament about the progress of the convention. Besides many already known facts there were also some interesting new points.

Quite surprising for many was the timetable of the convention he has in mind. He stated that he does not see any urgent need to finish reforms of the European Union before enlargement takes place. Answering questions of some MEPs he said, that the plan is to finish the work of the convention first half of next year and wished that the IGC will finish in the second half, in which case the result could be ratified before the first round of enlargement. But he said that there is no connection between enlargement and the convention at all. From his point of view enlargement would not be affected, in case that the IGC will not decide on any result or the result will not be ratified. He also made a division between the constitutional aspects the convention will decide on and provisions of treaties which will not be constitutional. In case that negotiations take longer than expected, he assumed that it might be possible that the constitutional provisions will be finished until summer 2003 and treaty changes which will not be constitutional could be decided on in a later stage. Whether this would be more transparent to the people and how that is going to work technically was unanswered.

Being asked about the final form of the result he informed the committee, that there will be a first draft of the constitutional treaty, proposed by the presidium on the 28th and 29th of October. Nevertheless Giscard d'Estaing asked not to expect too much of that paper, as it will only lay out a framework for the constitutional treaty. It will include the headings of the chapters but in most cases not their content. Concerning to Giscard d'Estaing, the bones of the constitutional treaty would be filled with flash that partly is the results of the working groups and partly those of the plenary debate.
Answering the question of a parliamentarian why he only spoke of a constitutional treaty and not of a constitution he admitted that indeed the idea of a constitution is not rejected anymore in the convention. He also welcomed the constitutional proposals of Brok, Duff and Pleuger and stressed that these are extremely important contributions for the convention.

Answering the question of a parliamentarian concerning the involvement of national parliaments, he said that he would prefer a European congress out of national and European parliamentarians meeting every few years to a permanent European Convention. From his point of view a congress would be better legitimised to alter the constitutional treaty than a permanent convention. But as usual he stressed that he will only talk about institutional questions, when all other issues will be dealt with.

Finally he also welcomed the results of the working groups I (subsidiarity) and III (legal personality) which will be presented in the convention plenary on Thursday and Friday this week. He said that especially the recommendation to arrive to a single legal personality for the Union is an important input for the future work of the convention. He said that after the this weeks convention plenary the drafting phase on these two issues will begin.

By Jan Kreutz, contact: jan.kreutz@jef-europe.net