EUROPEAN SUMMIT: The President of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox, has warned EU leaders against attempting to unpick the agreement on reforming the Union reached last week at the Convention on the Future of Europe.
In his address to the leaders at the start of a summit in the Greek resort of Porto Carras, Mr Cox said that the Inter-Governmental Conference (IGC), due to begin in October, should be as short as possible.
"This balanced result should not be lightly discarded or unbundled. Those who seek to unravel the broad consensus which was created would bear the responsibility of a result which would be the lowest common denominator, precisely the result which the convention wished to avoid - and managed [to avoid\]," he said.
Mr Cox stopped short of asking the leaders to finish the IGC before the end of this year, but he said it was important that the final text of the constitutional treaty should be agreed well before the European elections in June 2004.
"Our citizens have the right to know what they are voting for, what role this parliament is destined to have in the wider Europe. I also hope that the new treaty can contribute to making the next elections to the European Parliament the first real European elections," he said.
Mr Cox said that, regardless of the new treaty's merits, most citizens were more concerned about issues which affected them directly. The EU still needed to work hard to earn the confidence of citizens.
"Whatever the final outcome of the treaty itself, enthusiasm for the European project will only be rekindled if Europe addresses the concerns of our citizens, and if Europe delivers. Our electors are blithely indifferent to questions of qualified majority voting and subsidiarity; they want action on jobs, on security and on peace."
