EU Convention

*UPDATED* The EU is 50 years-old: Celebrating the common values of the EU

*This article has been updated with responses to the Berlin Declaration * The 25th of March 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome which established the European Union. The event offered an opportunity to look ahead to the next 50 years and imagine the EU of 2057. The ’Berlin Declaration’ was adopted on the 25 March 2007. The Declaration reflected upon the main achievements of the EU so far, and reaffirmed its values: Solidarity: an enlarged and open Europe (...)

IGC final preparatory meeting before Brussels Summit

The IGC met at Foreign Minister level in Luxembourg on Monday, 14 June 2004. The meeting was to prepare final negotiations ahead of the Summit of Heads of State or Government level in Brussels on 17/18 June. The Foreign Ministers had met on 17-18 May and again on 24 May to identify areas of consensus. Read the related EPHA article. The Irish Presidency commented: "This morning we had a very productive meeting. Most of our discussion was focused on document CIG 80/04, which was (...)

Irish presidency continues constitutional talks

Minister for Foreign Affairs Brian Cowen addressed the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on 20 January 2004, on the current state of play regarding the IGC. He announced that EU Foreign Ministers will continue the negotiations on the Constitutional text on 29 January, in the form of an initial informal discussion over lunch at next Monday’s meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council. The European Council gave the Irish (...)

IGC - New Presidency compromise text, 9 December

On 9 December 2003 the Italian Presidency produced new compromise proposals to be used as a basis for the discussions in the European Council meeting of 12-13 December 2003. Following the Naples meeting of foreign ministers, the Presidency has produced an Explanatory memorandum (IGC Doc 60/03) and two new documents. The first, CIG 60/03 ADD 1 covers issues that the Presidency feels that they have managed to integrate the comments of the various delegations and that this is now a balanced (...)

IGC endgame - Results of the Foreign Ministers ’Conclave’

Under the Presidency of Minister for Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini, the "Conclave" of EU Foreign Ministers met on 28-29 November 2003. The Ministers discussed the Italian Presidency’s draft of 25 November and to outline the agenda of the IGC session at Head of State and Government level to be held in mid-December at the same time as the European Summit. The results of the meeting were some significant agreements: each country to have their own Commissioner with voting rights. (...)

Italian Presidency’s strategy to finish IGC on time

Speaking to MEPs in Strasbourg, Silvio Berlusconi, the head of the rotating Council Presidency, explained on 22 October that in order to find a compromise on the outstanding issues relating to the new EU Constitution, a negotiating method has been chosen which is "different from previous ones". This new method consists of three phases: the first phase aims to map out the positions of individual governments. In the second phase, the Italian Presidency puts together a first proposed (...)

IGC secretariat issues comments on the draft Constitution

The Secretariat of the IGC issued on 6th October 2003 a 553 page document which suggests legal and linguistic amendments to the Draft Constitution. This document will be the basis of the negotiations in the IGC. The Secretariat draft has deleted, merged and created new articles articles in order to clarify the text produced by the Convention. Each suggestion has an explanatory statement to provide the justification for the changes. Article I-3, EU Objectives The IGC Secretariat draft (...)

IGC will finally debate public health on 27 October

Influencing the IGC debate on public health On 6 October 2003, the IGC Secretariat (consisting of the European Council legal staff) published their Editoral and legal comments on the draft Constitution text. A few days later, on 9 October 2003, the expert group on technical issues (which includes all Member States and Accession Countries) began its work. This is now a key moment to influence the debate on the technical and legal changes to the treaty text. There is also an updated (...)

Advocacy case study: campaign for health in the EU Convention

Tamsin Rose, EPHA’s General Secretary, participated in the European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG) on 1-4 October 2003. She made a presentation on EPHA’s advocacy campaign to get health into the EU Convention. You can download the briefing note and the presentation.

September 2003, briefing on the IGC structure

On 6-7 September 2003 the Italian Presidency presented their plans for the IGC and confirmed their intention to meet the deadline of completion by December 2003 despite emphasis by several Member States that they were not prepared to speed through the process. The Italian presidency stated that there would be no or minimal involvement of experts and there will not be preparatory groups. This implies that the Presidency considers Part III (policy areas) closed. The IGC process will be led (...)