A joint effort including all European institutions as well as national and regional governments and the civil society is necessary if the process to ratify the European Constitution is to be concluded successfully. This was the main outcome of the public debate “What strategy to ratify the Constitution?”, organized by the Union of European Federalists (UEF) on September 29th in Brussels and attended by about 200 participants.
“The Convention and the IGC have done their part of the job. But the 3rd and most difficult part of the game is still ahead: the ratification of the European Constitution by the 25 national governments of the European Union”, Jo LEINEN, President of UEF and MEP (PSE, D) Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of the European Parliament said in his introductory remarks. The “European spirit” was quite good in the Convention and – although to a much lesser extent – still existing in the Intergovernmental Conference, Mr. Leinen analysed. Just before the signing of the Constitution on October 29th in Rome the mood has changed dramatically. In quite a few EU member states the Constitution was misused for party-political purposes, Mr. Leinen criticized. Secondly, the constitutional debate was highly fragmented. “One must not look at the individual trees but at the whole forest”, the President of UEF underlined.
Inigo MENDEZ de VIGO, Member of European Parliament (PPE-DE, E), Co-Rapporteur on the constitutional treaty, confirmed this view. “It is necessary to assess whether the Constitution is better than what we have now”, he said leaving no doubt that the first was true in his mind. He warned against leaving the responsibility of promoting of the Constitution to national governments alone. Neither the European Parliament nor the Commission could lean back and take a neutral stance, he insisted. “Those who think that the Constitution is a big step ahead have to say it.” Mr. de Vigo also called for an “intelligent way to organize the ratification procedure”.
Henri MALOSSE, the European Economic and Social Committee’s Rapporteur on the Constitution, declared that the ECOSOC fully supported this European project and that it was ready to play its part in the ratification process. “This means that we will try to mobilize the civil society”. According to Mr. Malosse those who are in favour of the Constitution should not hesitate to “diabolise” those who are opposing the project as “they don’t have anything else to offer.”
These introductions were followed by an open debate with the audience including contributions from Mr. Paolo PONZANO, Head of the Task Force on the Future of Europe and institutional matters of the European Commission, the MEPs Proinsias DE ROSSA (PSE, IRL) and THOMAS MANN (PPE-DE, D), Fernand HERMAN, President of UEF Belgium, as well as from many interested citizens who invited the politicians and all those willing to campaign for the ratification of the Constitution to convince the people by using emotion and simple - but not simplistic - messages instead of using heartless arguments.
