The Convention on the future of Europe , or European Convention is a Convention, i.e. a provisional institution, which was created at the conclusion of the European Council of Laeken in December 2001.

It was charged, in 2002, to engage a debate on the future of the European Union, from the point of view of a convocation of a intergovernmental Conférence. It succeeds, in June 2003, with a project of European Constitution which was taken again, essentially, during the signature of the the Treaty of Rome of 2004.

Mandate

Within the framework of the widening of the European Union (UE), the mission of Convention was to examine the crucial questions which the future development of the Union raises and to seek the various possible answers .

  1. the distribution of competences between the European Union and the Member States. (In particular, the question of the degree of Fédéralisme was put);

  2. Of the important institutional reforms (conceptual?) ;
  3. a beginning of European constitution.

Composition

It was made up of 105 members:

  1. 84 (3 per country for the 28 countries concerned: 25 Member States of the European Union + the 3 applicant countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey). Each country was to designate two deputies or senators plus a person chosen by her government;
  2. 16 members of the the European Parliament;
  3. 2 members of the European commission: Michel Barnier and António Vitorino;
To these 102 members are added the president Valery Giscard d'Estaing and the two vice-presidents Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene.

However on these 105 members, only 66 had the right to vote, the 39 other members representing only the applicant countries.

A Presidium and a forum were also made up.

Course of work

Convention was installation during the Meeting of the European Council of Laeken December 14th and 15th 2001. It began its work on February 28th 2002. It was initially to conclude in spring 2003, at the time of the meeting of the European Council of Thessalonique (June 20th, 21st and th 2003).

To Rome, the July 18th 2003, the president of Convention on the future of Europe, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, accompanied by the two vice-presidents, Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene, officially gave in the name of Convention a complete project of a treaty instituting a Constitution for Europe to the presidency Italy nne of the European Council. At the time of these meetings with the Italian president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and it president of the Council Silvio Berlusconi, Giscard d'Estaing has “ paid homage to the decisive contribution of the Italian members of Convention, to the Amato vice-president, the representative of the Italian Government Gianfranco Fini, to the representative of the Italian Sénat Lamberto Dini and to the representative of the Italian House of Commons Marco Follini, like with their substitutes ”. Giscard d'Estaing then invited the Italian Presidency to lead the intergovernmental Conférence “ to the more political high level, so as to it conclude under Italian Présidence, in December 2003 ”. Thus, after the the Treaty of Rome, the Constitution of Rome would be born in the Italian capital. “ the contribution of Italy as country founder of the European Union will have been decisive. The signature of the Constitution could then intervene in May 2004, the day before the European elections, which would give him the seal of a popular ratification ”.

This program was not carried out as envisaged by the president of Convention, Silvio Berlusconi not having been able to lead to a compromise in December 2003. It is thus under the Irish presidency that the compromise was found on a text modified compared to the project suggested by Giscard d'Estaing and Convention, in particular by the addition of a third part which took again the provisions of the various treaties signed since that of Rome and the Charter of the basic rights was established in a form which was not imperative for the States. Nevertheless, it is with Rome, on October 29th 2004, six months after the expiry envisaged, that the the Treaty of Rome of 2004, instituting a Constitution for Europe, was signed in fine - whereas the tradition wants that it is it in the Member State which chairs the Union at the time of decision making.

Financing

The budget was estimated at 10,5 million euros.

Raised problems

  1. Federalism
  2. Equality of the States
  3. Right of Veto
  4. audio-visual the
  5. common Agricultural policy (CAP)
  6. Public services
  7. cultural Exception
  8. Franco-German Reports/ratios
  9. Reference to the Christian values and the Secularity

See too

External bonds

  • http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/actu/impression.asp
  • the official site of European Convention
  • European Convention European NAvigator

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