"A failure of the reforms would be an epoch-making mistake": Angela Merkel, president on duty of the EU Council, insists on a concept that she has expressed on several occasions in the last few months. At the final conference of the summit that took place in Berlin yesterday, after submitting the "Declaration on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Treaties of Rome", signed at the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Merkel explained that, to "untie the institutional tie", a new inter-governmental conference will be convened under the Portuguese chairmanship, i.e. in late 2007. The IGC will outline the new text of the Constitutional Treaty, "which will have not only to be approved but it will also have to be enforced" before the next elections for Strasbourg Parliament. Merkel revealed the differing positions of the 27 member states by stating: "We take seriously the comments of all the member states but we must also tell people, before the European elections of 2009, how we will have to proceed". So, she specified: "When we bet on the strength of freedom, we bet on people. We put people at the centre. And I would like to add: for me personally, this idea of people partly takes inspiration from the Christian-Judaic roots of Europe". (to be continued)
