Convention facing race against time

Date: 20/02/03

By Dana Spinant

SENIOR members of the Convention on the future of the EU have admitted they face an "enormous" task to draft the European constitution by June and are talking of pushing the deadline back to October.

The forum has received around 1,000 amendments to the 16 draft articles put forward on 20 January, which are being considered by the praesidium. It is estimated that the constitution will eventually have between 250-300 articles.

In addition, the forum needs time to digest the consequences of the rifts over Iraq for the Union's common foreign and security policy (CFSP) before drawing up provisions for an effective external policy. Any demand for an extension to the June deadline is likely to irk EU leaders, but Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the Convention's chairman, is expected to raise this question in talks with them soon.

Spanish MEP Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, one of the 13 praesidium members, confirmed that there is a debate about prolonging the Convention's work to the autumn.

"The task is enormous and the timing is tight," he said. However, he suggested any decision to postpone the deadline should not be taken yet for fear "a feeling of relaxation may take over the Convention".

"We will officially try to finish it as required," Méndez de Vigo added. The Convention's spokesman, Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, insists the praesidium as a whole has not called for a new deadline, though he was aware individual members had suggested October would be a more realistic target. Such a deadline would not affect the timetable for adopting the constitution, according to Méndez de Vigo. "It cannot be signed before May 2004, so why rush and come up hastily with a bad treaty at the end of 2003?" he asked.

EU leaders decided at the Copenhagen summit last December that the constitutional treaty will be signed only when the ten new members join the Union on 1 May 2004. That gives the Convention a certain leeway, the Spaniard insists.

Meanwhile, French MEP Alain Lamassoure, a Convention member, has asked the praesidium to delete Article 14 on CFSP and to freeze any discussion on it due to the rift over Iraq. He argued: "As the member states are not even able to apply the Maastricht Treaty on the area, the Convention cannot, at this stage, make credible proposals".

"We need time to reflect on this and find solutions," Mendez de Vigo acknowledged.

Senior members of the Convention on the future of the EU have admitted they face an 'enormous' task to draft the European constitution by June 2003 and are talking of pushing the deadline back to October.