In his speech in Strasbourg, Prodi stated: "In the development of the European building process, we must never fail to make an effort to understand the reasons of the others and take them upon ourselves. We have always made this effort, but we expect the others to be equally understanding". Prodi then spoke of the June summit, which is expected to bring about an Intergovernmental Conference for a partial renegotiation of the Constitution. "We will not accept specified the former president of the EU Commission a distortion of the existing institutional package" (strengthening of the foreign and common security policy, one single Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a "stable" presidency of the Council, "the extension of the majority vote"…). After wishing wide agreement can be found on these topics, the Italian Prime Minister added: "If agreement between the 27 member states should turn out to be impossible, this would raise the problem of how to proceed". Then, Prodi explained that "Italy will support the German presidency and then the Portuguese one" for a new agreement on the Constitution. Otherwise, "a lead of countries might turn out to be the best way to continue moving towards a closer union, provided the door is always left open to those who might want to join at a later time".
