Press Briefing Note on Duff/Voggenhuber Report on the 'period of reflection'

3.00.00pm GMT Fri 13th Jan 2006

Following the No votes in the French and Dutch referendums, the June European Council adopted a 'period of reflection ... to enable a broad public debate to take place in each of our countries'. This report is the Parliament's first reaction to these events.

AIM

The report sets out a salvage plan for the Constitution. It confirms the Parliament's position that the Treaty of Nice cannot be the basis for the continuation of the integration process. It says that the period of reflection should be used to re-launch the constitutional project in order to find solutions to the blockage in ratification.

Duff-Voggenhuber reject a piecemeal approach to political and institutional reform, as this would destroy the comprehensive, well-balanced consensus achieved by the Convention and the IGC. The purpose of the period of reflection is to democratise the consensus by, among things, addressing the genuine concerns of the citizen as expressed in France and the Netherlands and elsewhere. The European dialogue should lead to decisive political choices. The period of reflection should be brought to an end in the second half of 2007 with a clear decision about how to proceed with the Constitution.

PROCESS

The European Parliament and national parliaments will promote jointly a series of Parliamentary Forums during 2006-07 in order to discuss a number of fundamental questions about the nature and future direction of European integration. These questions include the following:

what is the goal of integration?

what role should Europe have in the world?

what is the future of the European social and economic model?

how do we define the EU's boundaries?

how do we enhance freedom, security and justice?

how do we finance the Union?

The Parliament will commission and publish 'European Papers' which will be used as the basis for the deliberations in the Forums. These Forums will generate debates within member states at many levels but according to a common European template. The national debates will be synthesised by the Parliamentary Forums.

PLENARY VOTE AND CHOICES FACING THE PARLIAMENT

Parliament has to decide whether it sticks to the position currently in the report (that is to state that there is only one solution namely keeping the present text, perhaps with interpretative annexes) or whether it leaves the options open, as proposed by the rapporteurs, and includes the possibility of modifying and improving the current text.

MM. Duff and Voggenhuber are convinced that the Parliament should give a clear and balanced message by indicating both options. The rapporteurs also believe that if the outcome of the reflection phase is the modification of the current text, a constituent mandate should be prepared for the revision process during 2008 and that the modified text should be adopted by referendum or consultative ballot across the Union on the same day as the elections to the European Parliament. The plenary has to decide if it has the courage to indicate with these proposals a roadmap for a way out of the current crisis.

For the plenary, MM. Duff and Voggenhuber have tabled a number of amendments:

• making more explicit the fact that ratification of the present text has stalled and that the eventual constitution will have to be modified;

• saying that the period of reflection should lead to a revision process which nevertheless respects the constitutional core of the current text;

• reflecting the decision of December's European Council to conduct a radical overhaul of the financial system of the EU in 2008-09;

• calling for a consultative ballot to be held across the EU on the same day as the European elections in 2009.

NEXT

The European Parliament will debate the report during its plenary in Strasbourg on 18 January with a vote on 19 January.

The Presidents of the European Parliament and the Austrian Parliament will then organise the first Parliamentary Forum, to be held on 9 May, in order to make comprehensive recommendations to the June European Council about how the Union should proceed to find its way out to the crisis.