The European Council of Athens took its decision:

VGE gets no extra-time!

We, the citizens of the Union, propose a different agenda for the Constitution of the Union

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the European Convention,

Coming from different areas of the European associative life and being actively involved in the debate over Europe’s future, we don’t want to experience again what happened on the occasion of the Intergovernmental Conferences in Amsterdam and Nice.

At the last meeting of the European Council in Athens it was decided not to grant extra-time to Mr. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. Furthermore, fully conscious that the time allowed to the Convention for completing its work is too short and risks weakening its quality, the Heads of States and Governments decided that bringing an end to the Convention’s endeavours must be taken over by the Intergovernmental Conference.

In your own interest and for the sake of your historical work’s success we deeply wish you to consider the following suggestions before you formulate your final joint decision concerning the Constitution’s remaining agenda.

A different agenda for the Constitution of the Union

1. The European Convention shall receive, from the Presidium, a comprehensive and coherent preparatory draft of the Union’s Constitution (15-16-17 May 2003).

2. This preparatory draft shall be debated over during a second session of dialogue with the European civil society (29-30 May 2003).

3. The European Convention shall adopt a draft of the Union’s Constitution (12-13 June 2003).

4. The President of the Convention shall present this draft to the European Council in Thessalonique of 20-21 June 2003, and to the European Parliament during its plenary session in Strasbourg (1-3 July 2003).

5. The European Convention shall elaborate a final draft of the Union’s Constitution, which takes into account the recommendations from the European Council and the European Parliament. Delegates from national parliaments to the Convention conform their position with the one previously adopted by their own assembly (July-October 2003).

6. The President of the Convention shall submit this final draft for adoption at an extra-ordinary meeting of the European Council comprising both the Union’s Member States and the Candidate Member States. This extra-ordinary meeting shall take place in Roma before the end of December 2003.

7. The governments of both the Member States and the Candidate States shall decide to submit the final draft of the Constitution to a European referendum organised concurrently with the European elections planned on 10-13 June 2004. (December 2003).

8. The Union’s Constitution shall enter into force in those States whose citizens will have expressed a majority of votes in favour of it and with immediate effect (July 2004).

The proposed agenda – that obviously entails an extension of the European Convention’s mandate – cannot be equated to a failure of the Conventioneers’ mandate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, members of the European Convention,

After more than a year of discussion and debate in plenary sessions and working groups, numerous attainments and progresses have been gained by a large consensus not only amongst you but also amongst those who closely attended the Convention’s work.

The reality of the Union’s constitution-making is in itself quite valuable and meaningful thanks to the decisions to the include the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Constitution, to recognise the Union’s legal personality, to eliminate the absurd pillar-structure and to simplify the legislative procedure.

Regarding the future Constitution’s content, your debates clarified the demand for a clear distribution of competencies between the Union and the Member States, for a simultaneous reinforcement of the Union institutions’ role in the economic and social area, the justice, security and freedom area, as well as the areas covering foreign affairs, external security and military defence.

These attainments and progresses – fully supported by the conclusions from the majority of the working groups – have been confirmed by a large amount of amendments that you proposed to the draft-articles prepared by the Presidium. This again affirmed the positive and innovative will that exists among the Conventioneers.

It would not be fair nor conformable to the spirit that animated the Convention, should the Convention’s end product that will be delivered in June 2003, be in reality and in its essential part the product of the Praesidium’s and not of the 105 conventioneers.

Should the Convention remain submitted to the constraints of a strict calendar or the difficulty to reach consensus or even unanimity, it risks sinking into quick-sand in search for the smallest common denominator.

Today this risk exists in several areas such as the Union’s finance, the foreign and security policy, the socio-economic policy and the European model of society, and the organisation of a representative, participatory and parity democracy.

A two-step adoption process – a draft in June and a final draft in autumn - would certainly allow valuable improvements on these topics.

Having this risk in mind and convinced that the constitution-making is your historical work, we believe that the time has come to clarify these key questions that directly concern the Convention’s work-method, and to show audacity in those areas in which the strongest ultra-conservative resistance shows up both within and outside the Convention.

When supporting the agenda that we suggest, it is important to keep the following principles in mind:

A fully democratic constitution-making process

1. The Convention is the unique political arena within the Union where both the national (governments and parliaments) and European (Parliament and Commission) constitution-making bodies can express themselves.

After having been democratically debated over within, and drafted by the Convention, the Constitution cannot be renegotiated by diplomats. This would be unacceptable. The final draft produced by the Convention must be delivered to the European Council – it being the body that issued the Convention’s mandate – but this Council should restrict itself to express its approval or rejection of the said final draft.

2. The Convention has no constitution-making power. Its final draft shall therefore be elaborated ad referendum.

The democratic legitimacy of the Constitution shall not derive from its being approved by Heads of States and Governments but well from the genuine source of sovereignty, i.e. the European peoples by means of a referendum.

3. A constitution is not an international treaty.

If the Heads of States and Governments’ opinion is that the Convention’s final draft needs major modifications, then a new mandate should be given to the Convention to consider these modifications and take the appropriate decisions.

We strongly suggest that you submit the above agenda to the Convention as official contribution.

Thanking you for the attention you will draw to this open letter, we remain.

Yours sincerely,

Pier Virgilio Dastoli
Raymond Van Ermen
Jacqueline de Groote
Philippe Grosjean
Jacques-René Rabier
Roger Vancampenhout
Joao Mateus Tique
Piero Ravaioli
Roger Bevan
Hellen Engelbrecht
Alice Bakker-Osinga
Jean-Claude Seché
Michele Ciavarini Azzi
Jean Poty
Michel Tilleut
Jean-Bernard Quicheron
Marco Fantini
Emmanuel Vallens
Gianfranco Copetti
Laurent Zibell
Claudio d'Aloya
François Josserand
Bernard Barthalay
Daniel Aelvoet
Dietrich Hammer
Luca Copetti
Domenico Rossetti Di Valdalbero
Nicola Fontanella
Virginie Delaury
Guido Montani
Horst Grützke
Carlos Spoor
Willy Wijns
Giuseppe Leto
Paloma Saavedra
Peter Müller
Aleksander Glogowski
Luca Jahier
Robert Pendville
Roberto Castaldi
Bruno Mahlow
Carlo Crocella
Charlotte Roffiaen
Giovanni Moro
Zeynep Bayrak
Sergio Pistone
Gunda Macioti
Jean-Pierre Gouzy

Contact: permanentforum@europeanmovement.org