EU draft constitution ready by end of month

BRUSSELS: Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has told members of the Convention on the Future of Europe that the EU's draft constitution will be complete by the end of May, giving them less that three weeks to redraft it.

During its final sessions before the constitution is presented to EU leaders on June 20th, the convention will abandon its plenary system in favour of meetings among groups to negotiate a consensus. The convention's Praesidium agreed this week to seek agreement on the treaty articles from the convention's components - national governments, MEPs, the European Commission and national parliaments.

The final weeks will also see meetings of European political groups such as the conservative European People's Party and the social democratic Party of European Socialists.

Mr John Bruton, a member of the Praesidium, said that weighing opinion in the convention to take account of such factors as national interests and size of population represented would be a highly complex task.

"It is not just the size of opposition to a proposal that matters but the intensity of feeling," he said.

Mr Bruton said that, during June, the convention would meet for three or four days a week as opposed to two as at present. Mr Giscard would report each morning on the level of agreement reached so far before the plenary session would dissolve into groups to negotiate in greater detail.

"Plenary sessions alone will not solve it. You don't have a meeting of minds in that context, just a succession of statements," he said.

The Government has tabled sweeping amendments to draft articles dealing with the future organisation of EU institutions such as the Commission and the Council of Ministers, where national governments meet. The amendments, tabled by the Minister for Europe, Mr Dick Roche, call for some articles to be scrapped altogether and for others to be replaced by entirely new text.

The Government opposes the abolition of the six-month, rotating EU presidency and the appointment of a full-time president of the European Council, the formation in which EU leaders meet. Mr Roche has also tabled amendments opposing a plan to reduce the size of the Commission and has proposed an alternative plan for choosing the Commission president.

The institutional questions have divided the EU's bigger member-states from smaller countries, with the large states favouring a full-time EU president. There are divisions among smaller states too, however, with the Benelux countries this week proposing a two-tier Commission, with some commissioners being deprived of a right to vote.

Most small countries want each member-state to nominate one member of the commission; the Government favours the retention of the agreement reached at Nice which could see the commission reduce in size after the EU grows to more than 27 member-states.

Mr Bruton said the convention would probably reach a compromise on institutional reform but other issues could be left to governments to negotiate later.