Dear Europeans,

The IGC is entering a crucial period. More and more demands on opening the package and implementing changes are being made by the member states. As all negotiations are held behind close doors and no public debate on the IGC negotiations is foreseen, this would constitute a threat to the democratic face of the Constitution. One of the latest proposals by the European Finance Ministers is to take away the budgetary powers of the European Parliament. This would be totally unacceptable as budgetary power has traditionally been the core competence of Parliaments in democratic systems. Opening the compromise on presiding the sectoral Councils would result into a debate seen in Nice: old arguments no new solution. Due to these debates many leading EU politicians fear that the timetable (an indicative timetable is part of this bulletin) cannot be kept and therefore the Constitution is threatened to fail.

We have also witnessed a historically unprecedented proof of trust among two governments when Gerhard Schroeder handed over his vote to Jacques Chirac at the EU Summit on 17 October. In practice this had no real consequence since there were no expectations that the debate could produce a significant outcome. Nevertheless, this is a sign of national governments showing trust to each other when it comes to European issues.

The last few weeks have been a time of change for JEF-Europe, the organisation behind this bulletin. The bi-annual Congress of JEF has adopted detailed policy regarding the IGC and the Convention text. Although JEF sees many shortcomings in the present draft Constitution, there is no trust for the IGC to improve the text and find better solutions. This second issue of the IGC bulletin also presents the opinions of various EU institutions on the IGC, such as the European Parliament and the European Commission.

Being critical about the ineffectiveness of the IGC-method and the low level of legitimacy convened upon it by the Union’s citizens, LYMEC and the UEF demand from the IGC not to open pandora’s box and leave the Convention’s Constitution unchanged. The European Youth Forum – representing the voices of young people all over Europe –further call for the IGC to respect the principle of transparency, as the Convention did.

As we have elected a new and extremely enthusiastic Bureau, this will be the last Bulletin I (Jan Kreutz) will be involved in. From the beginning I have very much enjoyed keeping all of you up to date on the Convention and lately on the IGC. I want to thank all readers for their interest and their support. I am confident that the new editorial board will do an excellent job and keep you updated on every development concerning the European Constitution.

This bulletin will continue to be published on a monthly basis. The next edition will be send to you on 4th December 2003. As usual you are welcome to send us your contributions to mailto:convention@jef-europe.net, deadline for the next issue is 2nd December 2003. You can read all articles of this Bulletin in full length on: http://www.constitutional-convention.net.

Best European greetings,

Editor in chief