Dear Europeans,

Valéy Giscard d’Estaing opened the discussion on institutional questions within the Convention which was a slap in the face to the Convention members. Previously at the informal European Council meeting in Athens he had presented “majority positions” within the Convention which hardly any member could agree with. Before debating the issue of the Union institutions in the Convention he asked the heads of states for advice concerning this issue (you can find a briefing on the meeting in Athens in this bulletin). One week later did he not only put forward ideas about the future institutions of the Union (such as an appointed fulltime President of the European Council and a Congress of the People), which were knowingly not at all supported by any majority of the Convention members and which would have made the Union an even more complicated entity. Moreover he did not present these ideas to the Convention members at all, but leaked them to the press and presented them some days later to the Convention Presidium. Although the Presidium was able to weaken Giscard’s positions, it is obvious that the draft articles on institutions are still very intergovernmental and far from sufficient to make the Union a more democratic, more efficient and more transparent.

The Convention members reacted to Giscard’s and the presidium’s proposals not only with massive criticism inside and outside the Convention, but also started to debate their content of the proposals in depth. Although the real issues of debate for the Convention session, “The democratic life of the Union”, “The Union and its immediate environment”, “Union Membership” and “General and final provisions” are of great importance, they hardly received any attention from the public at all. In this bulletin you will find a longer briefing on the Convention session, which tries to analyse and comment the recent developments in and around the Convention.

In this bulletin issue you will find several comments of civil society organisations strongly disagreeing with Giscard’s approach and his positions. Further you will find the job descriptions that JEF has put forward to all EU citizens in the format of a newspaper “The Daily European”, which has received a lot of attention by the Convention members.

If you would like to contribute to the next edition of the bulletin, send your contribution to mailto:info@constitutional-convention.net (deadline for the 28th issue is 6th May). As usual, you can read all articles of this Bulletin in full at the Constitutional Convention Homepage: http://www.constitutional-convention.net.

Best European greetings,

The editor in chief.