Civil society dialogues with EESC on future strategy for IGC

In a dialogue with civil society organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) on 22 January 2004, Mr Jean-Luc Dehaene (former vice-president of the Convention)and Mr Andrew Duff MEP (Liberals, UK) exchanged their opinions about the results of the IGC with civil society representatives.

The general feeling was that the IGC should continue the debate on the basis of the final text presented by the Convention.

There are two more texts that amend the Convention’s one, the so-called "Naples amendments" and the "Brussels amendments". These last two were presented by the Italian presidency but only the first one was taken into debate.

The message from Mr Dehaene and Mr Duff was that the texts from the Italian presidency should not amend the Constitutional text by the Convention, because the Convention was a much more transparent process which involved civil society, therefore its results are more democratic than those of the governmental debate.

The conclusions of the session would be put forward to the Council.

Mr Dehaene said that the EU might have to wait to the Dutch presidency (second half of 2004) to see the success of the Constitutional text.

Mr Duff said that the current EP’s opinion (very homogeneous) on the failure of the IGC was due to its weak leadership and the problem of Poland and Spain on the QMV issue.

MEPs are ready to dialogue with the Spanish and Polish parliamentarians, and they are even ready to go on strike and refuse to grant comfort to the pending decisions, including the financial ones. However the new EP may disagree on this plan of action.

Representatives of civil society said that they were not happy on how the Convention text had dealt with some issues and wondered the possibility to put new issues on the table of the IGC.

However, Mr Dehaene said that if civil society thought they could still improve some issues they would be breaking the compromised agreed in the Convention, and this would work against civil society, favouring the people who don’t want a Constitution.

Mr Dehaene encouraged civil society to continue being active, pressing the Member States to issue a Constitution as close as possible to the Convention’s text.

Finally, a representative from the European Forum for Freedom in Education offered a common declaration to be signed by the participants and to be presented to the Irish presidency (copy attached).

Also attached the declaration of president of the European Economic and Social Committee, Roger Briesch concerning the intergovernmental conference, 19 December 2003.