On Thursday 5 June the Convention met from 15:00-20:30h. Among the issues debated was article 3 on the objectives of the Union.
The agenda can be found here.
Valery Giscard d’Estaing started the session commenting on the working method of the Convention, the next text that the Presidium will issue will be the definitive text, therefore Thursday was the last chance to debate article 3.
He explained that the Presidium felt that most of the articles had already reached consensus, however the Presidium thought that they needed to listen to the members of the Convention on a few points.
Oral interventions:
HEALTH:
Vytenis Andriukaitis (PES, Lithuania, parliament representative): to include a high level of health in article 3.
Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (MEP, GUE-NGL): to include high level of health in article 3.
Teija Tiilikainen (non-attached, Finland, government representative): to include the promotion of a high level of public health in article 3.
Cristiana Muscardini (MEP, UEN): to include the protection of public health in article 3.
ENVIRONMENT:
Lena Hjelm-Wallen (PES, Sweden, government representative): to stress that environment is an important aspect of sustainable development in article 3.
Piia-Nora Kauppi (EPP-ED, MEP): to move environment from its current position (article 3 paragraph 2) to the first sentence of article 3.
SERVICES OF GENERAL INTEREST:
Vytenis Andriukaitis (PES, Lithuania, parliament representative): to include access to services of general interest in article 3.
Dominique de Villepin (EPP-ED, France, government representative): to make progress in the issue of public services (but he did more a political statement rather than a specific contribution to article 3).
Pierre Chevalier (ELDR, Belgium, government representative): to include the promotion of services of general interest in article 3.
Joao Cardona Cravinho (CEEP, representative of the employers associations): to include services of general interest in article 3.
Emilio Gabaglio (ETUC, representative of the Trade Unions): to include access to services of general interest in article 3.
PROTECTION OF CONSUMERS:
Hannes Farnleitner (EPP-ED, Austria, government representative): to include protection of consumers in article 3.
Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann (MEP, GUE-NGL): to include consumer protection in article 3.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt (PES, MEP): to include a high level of consumer protection in article 3, and if this was not taken into account by the Presidium, to include it in one of the horizontal articles of Part III of the Treaty (dealing with the policies of the Union).
At the end of the session on Thursday, Giscard d’Estaing announced that there would be no plenary session taking place on Friday. Instead, the Presidium will hold small meetings of the Presidium which each of the component groups of the Convention (representatives from national governments, from national parliaments, from the European Parliament, from the Commission, etc) where they would discuss a final text on the Institutional reform, and try to find consensus before debating it in the next plenary session (12/13 June).
Next steps:
- Thursday 12 and Friday 13 June, Plenary session where they will probably debate the articles on the Institutional reform.
- IGC in Thessaloniki.
- July: the Convention will meet again to clarify the contents of Part III of the Treaty, which includes the articles on policies of the Union. They will mostly focus on the Institutional reform.
