Axel Schaefer and Marc-Oliver Pahl spoke for Europa-Union Deutschland, David Addae-Schneider-Mensah, President of JEF Germany, spoke for JEF-D.

We had much more time to present our opinion than in the Convention sessions in Brussels (around 15 min altogether) and as the Europa-Union position is less detailed than the UEF position we also had the opportunity to speak about some of the innovative UEF ideas.

The idea of the European Council being a representative collective "Head of the Union" was received with interest by the MPs. The concept of reforming the Council by establishing a single Council responsible for legislation and transforming the other Council formations into mere preparatory committees was even shared by the Convention Vice President, Guliano Amato, speaking at the meeting.

In general all speakers at the Convention and all members of Bundestag and Bundesrat present were in favour of the election of the Commission president by the EP and the Executive functions to be concentrated in the Commission. They were against any new EU institution involving national parliamentarians (except for Constitutional amendments).

So the opinion of the "Europeans" in German politics is very federalist!
The JEF/Europa-Union sponsored Parliamentary Forum European Constitution at the Bundestag might have helped to come to this consensus.

Marc-Oliver Pahl is a member of the UEF Executive Bureau and member of Europa Union Deutschland.

UEF’s policy document on the Convention can be found at: http://www.federaleurope.org/en/campaigns/convention/convention_position_paper.html