The proposed changes to the Constitution would change the "centre of gravity from land to people", the Minister for Foreign Affairs has told a Ministerial meeting of the four-strong Council of Europe in Strasbourg.
The negotiators at the multi-party talks had been inspired by the idea that "a meeting of hearts and minds was possible between unionism and nationalism, that violence and exclusion must end, that politics must work and that this generation could not pass on the mess to another", Mr Andrews said yesterday. The planned constitutional change was "an imaginative approach, which reflects a modernisation of our basic values and not in any sense a rejection of them". The new institutions would be built on partnership, enabling people to work together for the wider good.