26 November 2003

This morning the Commission discussed the amendments to the draft Constitution, which the Italian Presidency presented yesterday evening. It welcomes many parts of the proposals, and will support all Presidency efforts to maintain the balanced result of the Convention. However, some amendments change compromises reached after laborious work at the Convention. The Commission also regrets the poor progress at the IGC so far in improving the draft Constitution on some specific points.
On 28 and 29 November 2003, an IGC meeting in Naples should pave the way for the final negotiations. The meeting should mark a turning point. It should move the IGC away from simply listing national views into the final phase of negotiating and deciding in the general European interest. Ideally, work should be concluded at the Brussels European Council of 12 and 13 December, but the Commission supports the Italian Presidency in not seeking a compromise at any cost.

Institutional issues as such will formally not be on the Naples agenda. The Commission encourages the Presidency to maintain the double majority for voting in the Council. It is a simple and balanced system. The issue of the Commission's composition remains unresolved. The Presidency's idea to keep the ambiguous distinction between “voting” and “non-voting” Commissioners is fundamentally flawed. A good solution can only be found by recognising the equality of all Commission Members.
The Commission welcomes many parts of yesterday's proposal. The Presidency's efforts to keep the balanced outcome of the Convention, for instance on economic governance or on the budgetary powers of the European Parliament, are crucial for a successful IGC. Other positive elements include more majority voting in the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), and the introduction of flexibility for the future revision of the policy provisions of the Constitution. Progress is made to clarify EU responsibilities in the fields of public health, and research and development.
Other amendments, however, upset the balanced result of the Convention. The double-hatted construction of the Minister for Foreign Affairs should not be changed by giving primacy to the CFSP as an umbrella for all external relations of the EU. The Convention had established the right equilibrium between intergovernmental decision-making for CFSP and community mechanisms for other aspects of external relations. This should remain unchanged. The idea to introduce the European Council as an appeal body in the sphere of criminal law changes the compromise on justice and home affairs, which the Convention elaborated in great detail. Also, making an additional and general reference in the context of state aids to certain regional development problems is superfluous and difficult to interpret.
Finally, the Commission wants to see a limited number of improvements to the Convention's text. Majority voting in fiscal affairs related to the internal market is essential for effective EU action. The Commission had proposed to define in very precise words the scope to which majority voting should apply. It regrets that this idea has not been taken up.

For details on proposals made by the Commission to the IGC, see IP/03/1261 of 17.09.2003.

On-line at: http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/03/1609|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=