Madam, - I was surprised to read one of the leading authors of the EU's draft constitutional treaty, Gisela Stuart MP (December 19th) urge that we should now go slow in finalising it, and in bringing it before the people for approval.
Indeed Gisela Stuart greatly underrates the value of her own distinctive contribution in the Convention to the constitution. This is a provision whereby every draft EU law would in future be put before each national parliament for examination before it is even considered by the EU Council of Ministers or the European Parliament.
The purpose of this examination would be to see if the law went too far in attempting to do something at EU level that could be better done at national level.
A vitally important side effect of this would be that national public opinions in each country would, if the constitution is adopted, be alerted to EU draft laws years before they come into effect rather than find out about them long after they have been passed by ministers meeting in private (something the proposed EU constitution would also change).
I fail to understand why Gisela Stuart would now want to delay the introduction of a constitution that would enhance democracy in this way. Of course I would like to go further, for instance by having the people of Europe directly elect the Commission President, but that is no reason for delaying the substantial improvements in democracy contained in the present draft.
Her characterisation of the recent argument about how to count population for voting rights in the Council of Ministers as one that pitted France and Germany against the rest is just not accurate.
The overwhelming majority in the Convention favoured a voting system (also favoured by France and Germany) that, in so far as it counted population, counted it equally regardless of nationality. Only Spain and Poland wanted to stick with the arbitrary Nice system.
I see that at the end of her article, Gisela Stuart is described as a "British representative" on the Praesidium of the Convention. Perhaps that is what she now considers herself to have been, but it was not what she was. She was there as a representative of all the national parliaments of all the EU states.
As such, she did a very good job, particularly in regard to opening up the EU legislative process to national democratic involvement. - Yours etc.,
JOHN BRUTON TD. Former representative of the national parliaments component on the Praesidium of the Convention on the Future of Europe.
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Madam, - Gisela Stuart (December 19th) claims that "not once in the 16 months I spent on the Convention did representatives question whether deeper integration is what the peoples of Europe want, whether it serves their best interests or provides the best basis for a sustainable structure for an expanding Union".
This is plainly wrong and misleading, as many delegates raised that very question - the most obvious examples being Eurosceptics like David Heathcoat-Amory and Jens-Peter Bonde.
More to the point, as a member of the Convention's Praesidium, if she was so worried about this question why didn't Ms Stuart raise it herself? - Is mise le meas,
DANIEL KEOHANE, Research Fellow, Centre for European Reform, Tufton Street, London.