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

Mister Prime Minister, Mister Minister of the Foreign Affairs,

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.

Having this risk in mind, we deeply wish you to consider the following proposals before you formulate your decision concerning the agenda of the Union's Constitution-making and submit it for approval by the Heads of States and Governments from the Member and Candidate States.

A different agenda for the Constitution of the Union

1. The European Convention shall receive, from the Praesidium, a comprehensive and coherent preparatory draft of the Union's Constitution. This preparatory draft shall include the main constitutional provisions (Part I), the Charter (Part II), the final and general provisions (Part IV) and the main provisions defining the Union's policies (Part III) (30-31 May 2003).

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

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

4. 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. This draft shall perfect and finalise the provisions of the Part III and be fully revised in order to ensure it is coherent, readable and efficient. Delegates from national parliaments to the Convention shall conform their position with the one previously adopted by their own assembly (July-October 2003).

5. 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.

6. At this extra-ordinary European Council 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.

7. On the basis of this decision, 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 will have an immediate effect, except for the provisions concerning the institutions' composition and their modalities of establishment, which shall enter into force in 2009. (End of 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.

It is quite the opposite because it is the only possible way for the Conventioneers to keep the control over the constitution-making process, to prevent the "cooling off" effect to materialise for the benefit of some Member States, and finally to avoid the obscure bargaining that shamelessly took place on the occasion of the Intergovernmental Conferences of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice.

After more than 15 months of discussion and debate in plenary sessions and working groups, numerous attainments and progresses have been gained by a large consensus not only amongst the Conventioneers but also amongst the NGOs of the civil society 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 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, the 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 proposed to the draft-articles prepared by the Praesidium. 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 only 13 persons (the Praesidium's members) 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 quicksand 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 and a deeper reflexion on the feasibility of certain provisions - apparently audacious - such as the direct election of the Union's President.

Having this risk in mind and convinced that the constitution making is the historical work of the Convention, the Greek Presidency and the whole European Council, 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.

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 an intolerable offence against democracy. Therefore, the final draft elaborated by the Convention must certainly be submitted to the European Council who issued the Convention's mandate. But, with due regard to the full democratic representativeness of the Conventioneers, the Heads of States and Governments, on their turn, have no other rights than to openly decide whether they endorse or reject the Convention's final draft as a whole.

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.

Responsible: Virgilio Dastoli; speaker of the Permanent Forum of Civil Society
You can sign the letter and send your agreement to: permanentforum@europeanmovement.org.