The question passes to governments” “

Valery Giscard d’Estaing will present the EU Summit of Heads of State and of Government in Salonica with the draft European Constitution on 20 June. As regards the diverging opinions on the quality of the document and the possibilities of the Intergovernmental Conference in October to improve the draft, SirEurope met Zdenek Werner , delegate for Europe of the City of Prague, and member of the delegation of the Czech Republic in the Convention. Werner, a former pupil of the European Institute in Florence and now an international speaker on issues of European integration and the new relations between East and West, re-obtained Czech nationality seven years ago, after over twenty years of exile from the former Czechoslovak regime. What’s your view of the draft Constitution? “In February 2002 the Convention set out with great enthusiasm, but also with scepticism – or, rather, realism – which isn’t a bad thing when one is faced with building something from nothing or “restoring” a precious object. One result there has been. Partial, perhaps, incomplete, a compromise: but how otherwise could it have been? Drafting a Constitution is not like writing any kind of document: the pressures, the lobbies, the internal balance of forces within the Institutions and the national interests assume exceptional dimensions. To say therefore that the Convention had performed an excellent job is true. There are those who are more, and those less satisfied, but it all forms part of the game. We may discuss the timetable: granting the Convention some further months of work would not have harmed, also because the Constitution will not enter into force till 2009 in any case”. What in your view ought to be changed to improve the text? “The problem is not so much amending the text – something that will happen in any case – but acting in such a way that the policies enshrined in the Constitution be effectively put into practice. And with the highest degree of efficiency possible. And by efficiency I mean a match between words and actions, transparency in procedures, listening to society and safeguarding the legitimate interests of European citizens. I don’t know how far that will be possible: what emerged from the Convention is a Europe (of governments but also of the view of the enlarged Union) divided into two. Having said that, I may also add that it is important to have put an end to the system of six-monthly rotation of the Presidency of the Council and to have assigned the coordination of Summits to a single person. The planned institution of EU Foreign Minister is even more important. Due to the number of its fields of competence and the historical weight of its bureaucracy, the Commission does not run the risk of losing powers to the advantage of the Council. Also because, if we have a European Constitution, Council and Commission will both have to answer to Parliament and hence to citizens. More attention also needs to be paid to agriculture, the importance of which will increase following enlargement”. What can be expected from the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in October? “People’s expectations at the beginning of the work of the Convention were perhaps pitched too high: the result is that a large part of them have been disappointed. One can therefore understand the difficulty for most Christian European citizens to accept a weak allusion to the Christian roots [in the draft Constitution]. I can also understand the British difficulties in accepting limitations of sovereignty in foreign policy and the reticence of Spain in reforming the system of qualified majority vote particularly favourable to it, as sanctioned by the Treaty of Nice. But the task of the IGC is precisely that of responding to these expectations of people. Two things need to be taken into consideration by the IGC: first, the fact that Giscard’s text is single, and hence strongly consensual and legitimated also in the eyes of public opinion; second, the absolute power that, in spite of the consensus of the Convention, grants to it the dangerous faculty of revolutionising the Constitution. I foresee a result that, whatever it may be, has the absolute imperative of ensuring first the survival and then the growth of the enlarged Europe. In a year’s time we will a 25-member EU: we cannot permit ourselves organizational shortfalls or too deep contrasts on this or that policy. And that’s irrespective of the Constitution”.