Mr President, the text adopted by the Convention indisputably represents a step forward for European democracy. Many of our demands have been complied with: the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the improvement of the legislative process, including the introduction of the citizens’ right of legislative initiative; the inclusion among the Union’s goals of a number of aims, and we will fight and enlist the citizens’ support to see them achieved; full employment, fair trade, pluralism, the protection of human rights, conflict prevention, the sustainable development of the earth. It is thanks to results such as these that we can now claim this text as our own too and undertake to defend it in the coming months. Clearly, however, for us, this European constitutional process is not yet finished. We do not share the opinion of those who believe that this was the best that the Convention could do. In particular, it failed to bring instruments and policies into line with its most innovative objectives, it preserved the unanimity requirement and it further increased the Council’s supremacy in key areas of the Union’s competences. While we acknowledge the high quality of its work, we feel that the way in which the Praesidium and you, yourself, Mr Giscard d’Estaing, conducted the Convention’s work, the rules chosen to govern the process, must be carefully assessed and analysed, for they have had a definite effect on the quality of the text adopted. It was a serious strategic error to agree right from the beginning to the Convention being polluted by the very intergovernmental method that it was trying to leave behind. Clearly, this shifted the emphasis of the debate from what the Union should do and how to who wins and who loses under the new rules, which is typical of an Intergovernmental Conference and the basic cause of the regrettable failure of Nice. We have two practical proposals for the future: the Chairman of the Convention must be elected by the Convention itself and its work must be conducted more explicitly according to the Parliamentary method, which, although based on the search for consensus, is also based on the rule of majority voting. We have two extremely important challenges ahead, the first of which is certainly to prevent the positive results achieved by the Convention being nullified during the Intergovernmental Conference by the endeavours of those same governments which were opposed to the Convention and now want to challenge its work. That would be unacceptable and, I would venture to say, unlawful. Over and above the provisions of the Treaties, it is clear that the most important innovation of the Convention has been to take away the governments’ monopoly on reform of the Union. It is unthinkable that we should have to go back on this achievement, and it is not acceptable that essential parts of the text should be amended without the explicit agreement of Parliament, at least: this is clearly quite different from merely inviting a couple of observers to the meetings. In this sense, it would appear to be particularly important to highlight Mr Giscard d’Estaing’s proposal to make the different phases of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference completely transparent and public. Lastly, Mr President, it is absolutely essential to abolish the unanimity requirement for revision of the Constitution and to introduce power of ratification for the European Parliament. If it is not possible to do this, if the unanimity safety mechanism is preserved, it is not difficult to predict what will happen in the future: the Union will be unable to move forward, unable to act, and, in the long term, it will become increasingly insignificant and divided. The actual historic import of the Convention’s work will depend, not least, on the Italian Presidency. Mr Fini, Mr Frattini, you must defend the text adopted by the Convention from some of your impetuous colleagues. You must be open to improvements and endeavour to make it a text that can be developed and changed. In this you will have our full support. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE