Tag: IGC

Danish political parties are satisfied with the Commission President's guarantees concerning Denmark's opt-outs in certain EU policy areas.

With just a day to go before the next IGC meeting, Member States continue to hold widely divergent views on a number of institutional changes proposed by the draft Constitutional Treaty.

The EU's foreign ministers gather in Luxembourg on 13 October for a series of meetings culminating in the 16-17 October European Council in Brussels.

According to a survey commissioned by Le Monde and released on 7 October, 74 per cent of the French wish to have a say on the new EU Constitution.

Poland and Spain are determined to keep their voting rights in the new Constitution granted to them by the Nice Treaty despite the budgetary pressure coming from Germany and France.

This paper analyses the recent opinion of the European Commission on the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC).

Malta, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic and Finland sent a joint letter to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on 2 October, outlining their position on the IGC.

The Parliament urged the Intergovernmental Conference to revise the Euratom Treaty in order to eliminate legal inconsistencies with the Constitution.

A group of academics and researchers from Europe and the US has put together a proposal for the amendment of the draft constitutional treaty.

The paper suggests that the Intergovernmental Conference should examine how regions could play a bigger role in the enlarged EU.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has urged the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), starting on 4 October, to include the goal of price stability in the future EU Constitution.

The Polish parliament has rejected the country's right-wing opposition's demand to hold a referendum on the future EU constitution.

The Commission has urged the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference not to reopen the compromise reached at the Convention, but at the same time insisted on improvements for the draft constitution.

While the Commission is generally satisfied with the Convention's draft, it is also expected to propose several amendments when it adopts its opinion on the draft EU Constitution on 17 September.

The European Parliament's Constitutional Affairs Committee has called on the Intergovernmental Conference not to challenge the consensus achieved by the Convention and to approve the draft Constitution without altering its basic balance.

The study warns that EU citizens could reject the first European Constitution because of their disappointment with enlargement or because of their opposition to Turkey's entry into the Union.

Commissioner Michel Barnier, responsible for the Intergovernmental Conference, lays out his vision for the future of Europe.

A large majority of the 25 Member States of the enlarged EU have expressed determination to renegotiate the draft European Constitution. At the informal meeting of the European foreign ministers in Riva del Garda this weekend, only the six founding members of the EU defended the draft Constitution, proposed by the European Convention in July.

As the EU moves into its new era, the draft Constitutional Treaty will settle most of the institutional issues for now and the focus will shift onto the strategic, tactical politics and the substantive policy-making in an EU of 25.

The paper assesses the Convention's draft EU Constitution as a success in terms of constitutional design and argues that it is more accessible than any of the rival constitutional designs.

The EU's foreign policy agenda in coming years will likely revolve around failed states, crisis management, the new threats of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction along with questions of governance and democracy. Ultimately, the merits of the Constitution, the security strategy and enlargement will be judged by whether or not each helped the EU develop more effective policies to rise to these new challenges.

The EU Foreign Ministers are meeting on the banks of Lake Garda on 5-6 September to discuss the priorities for the forthcoming intergovernmental conference and the EU's security strategy.

Setting out its priorities for the EU's inter-governmental conference, Finland's government has reiterated its insistence on one commissioner with full voting rights per Member State.

Eight environmental NGOs presented on 20 August their proposals for amendments to the draft Constitution to be discussed in the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference.