IGC CONVENTION: JOSE MARIA AZNAR TO TAKE PART IN INAUGURAL SESSION.

Spanish Prime Minister and current President of the European Council Jos? Maria Aznar will participate on February 28 in the formal inaugural session of the Convention which will prepare the 2004 round of EU institutional reforms, to be held in the European Parliament's hemicycle in Brussels. He will make an introductory speech before all members and their substitutes, as well as the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, and the President of the Convention, Val?ry Giscard d'Estaing. This session will be preceded by a lunch, at which the Commission's representatives will have the opportunity of being better acquainted.In the meantime, a tripartite dialogue will take place on February 18 in order to conclude an inter-institutional agreement on the Convention's budget. Shortly afterwards, Mr Giscard d'Estaing will arrange two meetings, on February 22 and 27, with the members of the Convention's Presidium to prepare the rules of procedure and the final procedural measures. He already discussed the issue on February 14 with the two Vice-Presidents, Giuliano Amato and Jean-Luc Dehaene, as well as with one of the European Parliament's delegates to the Presidium, Klaus H?nsch. They for instance considered how to organise the consultation with civil society, bearing in mind that there will at any rate be an...