Press Release: Florence Institute presents a study on the reorganisation of the Treaties

Commission President, Romano Prodi, and Michel Barnier, Commissioner with responsibility ad personam for the reform of the institutions, have received a report from the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence on the reorganisation of the European Treaties. This study, produced at the request of the Commission, proposes a basic treaty incorporating the essential constituent elements of the Union set out in a coherent and easy-to-read text. The Florence Institute has drafted a 'Fundamental Treaty of the European Union' with less than a hundred articles setting out the institutional framework and the operating rules of the Union and the Union's policy objectives, without making any changes to the law as it is at present. The President has given the report to Commission departments to examine. The Commission will then present its conclusions to the Intergovernmental Conference.