INTER-GOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE: PRESIDENCY, COMMISSION AND PARLIAMENT VOICE THEIR CONCERNS.

• Position: European Union

Roberto Antonione urged the governments taking part in the IGC "to abandon the particularities and the logic of give-give, the principle of which is itself contrary to European integration". Michel Barnier said: "We must cut short the excuses that certain governments have already adopted, in other words the reasoning which says that the Convention never took place and that we have to re-open all of Pandora's boxes. To continue down this road would lead us to an impasse", Mr Barnier warned. Inigo Mendez de Vigo (EPP-ED, Spain), the European Parliament's observer at the IGC, said: "All of the debate which is ongoing at the IGC means backward steps". He said that the EcoFin Council proposals aimed at reducing the role of Parliament in the budgetary procedure and in fixing the financial perspectives were "unacceptable" (see European Report 2814 and 2816 for further details). "This is not co-decision but coercion" Terry Wynn (PES, United Kingdom), President of the Budgets Committee protested.

Parliamentary counter IGC.

This point was raised on October 6 at a meeting of the European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee opened to national MPs. "The EcoFin Council's proposals are very dangerous and cast doubt on 50 parliamentary democracies. There is a risk of Parliament being pre-empted and smothered by the Council" according to Jean-Louis Bourlanges (EPP, France). He added that "national and European MPs must stand together since there is a yellow line which the IGC must not cross". Constotutional Affairs Committee President Giorgio Napolitano (PES, Italy) indicated that on the initiative of Inigo Mendez de Vigo and Italian Senator Lamberto Dini, former Convention members representing the European Parliament and national parliaments will meet on December 5 in Brussels for a counter-IGC designed to remind governments of MPs' attachment to the Convention text. This hope remains to be confirmed: the Parliamentary Committee meeting heard the representative of the British House of Lords speak out against the general "bridging clause" outlined in article I-24s.4, whilst representative of the Finnish and Czech national assemblies reiterated their support for the principle of one full Commissioner per Member State.

Hispano-Polish intransigence.

As well as by developments at the IGC, the concerns of the Presidency, the Commission and Parliament are fuelled by recent public comments. After a two-day bilateral meeting, German Chancellor Gerhard...