13. December 2003

The Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament have concluded that the failure of the EU's heads of State and Government to reach agreement on a constitution for Europe proves that Intergovernmental Conferences are an out-dated method of decision-making.

Monica Frassoni, Co-President of the Green/EFA Group, said:

"The summit breakdown yesterday shows that 25 governments are unable to agree on a good constitution for Europe – especially when several of them are doggedly pursuing national agendas. The Greens said before the summit even began that it would be better to adopt nothing than to adopt a bad constitution. For us, the text drafted by the European Convention remains the basis for any further debate. With its last minute compromise proposals, the Italian Presidency has not really contributed to the success of the IGC. But those governments that made it impossible to find a democratic and efficient decision-making process in Amsterdam and Nice are also responsible for the summit failure. Their power games in those summits have inspired the attitude of Spain and Poland."

"We do not think that waiting for a few months will make it any easier to find agreement between governments – and we cannot simply freeze the constitutional process and pretend nothing has happened. This would effectively shelve all of the Convention's work. The Convention must instead come back into operation and finish the work of preparing a European constitution."

"We call for the convocation of the European Convention. We hope that they can find a way out of the dead-end street into which national governments have led us."

Read the full press release on-line:
http://www.greens-efa.org/en/press/detail.php?id=1709&lg=en