"Through Brussels’ compromise, Europe finds a new common basis": Today, in the afternoon, Angela Merkel, the current president of the EU Council, illustrated the European Parliament the outcome of the summit on 21-22 June. The speech of the German Chancellor, pointed out by a final standing ovation, was followed by a debate with the president of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso. Angela Merkel recalled "the difficult starting point" of the negotiations, the oppositions between the States "which had already ratified the Constitution and the States which had no intention to do that", and the risk "for a failure with hardly predictable consequences" for community integration. "On the other hand, the reached agreement keeps the essence of the Constitutional Treaty", and paves the way for the Intergovernmental Conference which will have to provide a "treaty of reformation, which should be ready by 2009 European elections, as everybody hopes". Merkel said to be sorry about relinquishing the symbols of the EU, but then she listed the results of the negotiations. The most important points of the mandate given to the Intergovernmental Conference were three: "The EU will have legal status; the majority vote will be adopted; more cohesion within the Union in the field of foreign policy". (To be continued)
