First of all let me express my warm thanks to all members of the Convention, and to you, Mr Giscard d’Estaing, for the dedication and intelligence you have shown in those long months of hard work that went into this phase of the constitution-building process. The Convention’s success has brought a lasting change in democratic life in the European Union. A great job well done and an unhoped-for result. The draft prepared by the Convention thus provides the basis – an excellent basis – for drawing up the final version of the Constitution. This is a good thing because above all the text has great symbolic value: this is the first time the Union’s foundations have been debated in an open, democratic forum representing the peoples and States of Europe.
Second, the draft Constitution resolutely tackles the issues of institutional balance and the complex nature of the Union. The debate has been intense and thorough, and it has allowed all the fundamental issues put forward to be dealt with coherently, namely:
finding a new and more effective way of reconciling the two tracks of European integration – the Community and the intergovernmental;
striking a balance between the States’ political representation and that of the people, and the resulting roles of Parliament and the Council;
devising a way to organise the representation of the Union’s general interest and the legitimate interests of the individual Member States.
Third and lastly, the Convention has laid the basis for the essential job of bringing the Union’s policies up to date.
The Intergovernmental Conference that is to finalise and formalise the work of the Convention is now commencing. I see two extreme standpoints emerging and I believe we need to discuss this frankly:
First there are those who believe the Convention’s draft should be left unaltered because it represents the only compromise that could be reached and the one with the greatest legitimacy.
Then there are those who would like to throw everything up for discussion because sovereignty is ultimately vested in the States and the last word should be theirs.
However understandable those standpoints might be, I believe both are open to criticism. From the start, ever since we advocated the Convention approach at Nice, we in the Commission have always said that the Intergovernmental Conference should be a short, focused, conclusive phase. But this does not mean it should just be a rubber stamp, because that would deprive the Intergovernmental Conference of its political responsibility. Clearly this Intergovernmental Conference cannot be compared with any other that has gone before, since it will be working on the basis of the excellent work of the Convention. But it still has its primary function, which is to allow the heads of State and government to exercise their political responsibility and present the definitive text for approval to the institutions and the people in their Member States. So it involves a new phase of political ownership. And that does not, of course, demand a lengthy Intergovernmental Conference, but it does call for a proper period of reflection.
There are aspects of the draft Constitution that bear clear witness to the fact that the compromise reached is incomplete or does not go far enough and that the result achieved to date is not the end of the line, as we had originally hoped. So the Member States, in whom sovereignty is ultimately vested, should be able to discuss it once more and see whether there are areas where it can be improved.
It is the Commission’s duty to point out such areas. As it stands, the draft Constitution still calls for unanimous decision-making in over 50 sectors, including some key areas of life in the Union. In such sectors we risk trusting our future to an unconstructive approach involving doing nothing and putting the brakes on, rather than to a positive approach entailing making proposals and building alliances with a view to shared goals.
Everyone agrees, moreover, that one of the shortcomings in the current situation is the lack of a proper instrument for coordination of Member States’ budget policies. But I wonder how people think such coordination can be achieved if the 25 future member countries can continue to exercise a power of veto freely in the area of indirect and company taxation.
Then there is the central problem of the future balance of powers between the Commission, the Council and Parliament. The draft Constitution proposes a Commission made up in a way that will – in my opinion and that of the whole College – make the institution representing the Union’s general interest less able to do its work effectively and credibly. The solution put forward creates a distinction between Commissioners by creating, unnecessarily lesser category. No people of the Union deserves to be represented by a second-class Commissioner. The consequence would be to split the College, where the link with the Member
States has been the Commission’s driving force for the last 50 years. More progress is needed to make sure every member country has a full Commissioner.
At the same time, the present draft Constitution leaves choices open on crucial points, such as the way the Councils are to work and responsibilities in the field of external relations. But the task of the Intergovernmental Conference is to make the work of the institutions more transparent and more effective and to prevent duplication and halfway solutions that may breed future conflicts.
Lastly, the Convention did not have time to update the current wording on the Community policies. In some cases this dates back to the 1950s and has been partly superseded.
It will obviously be difficult to settle all the issues still outstanding. But it is our duty to take a step back from the current political circumstances and give careful thought to those points where changes are necessary and can still be made now, so the constitutional structure is even more capable of meeting the challenges ahead. We need to see whether the political will exists. Is there no such will or is it a sense of realism that is inducing us to refrain from tackling these issues and to leave the text to stand?
If this is the case, the Commission is willing to take note of this calmly and realistically, mindful of the fact that significant progress has in any case been made. Essentially this has been the case every time the treaties were amended. It was true for the Single European Act and for the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties. It will be true here too. But we must realise we will need to be ready to cope with further crises and agree further changes and adaptations. This is what European integration has always entailed – a mixture of vision and reaction to unfolding crises. It is the history we have lived through and we know it well, even if there are times when we need to move forward more quickly. And this is definitely one of those times. At all events, if we want to capitalise on our experience and really draft a Constitution to last, we must provide for mechanisms that allow decisions to be taken tomorrow where they cannot be taken today.
We must look at more realistic procedures for amending the Constitution to allow us to act quickly and effectively – under pressure of crises – where the arrangements we are setting out today turn out to be insufficient. The worst-case scenario would be to find ourselves with ill-adapted constitutional provisions that simply cannot be amended because this would call for unanimity among at least 25 Member States. This is true as regards decisions calling for unanimity, which applies even today in so many sectors, and it is also true as regards bringing policies up to date, which even now we are unable to tackle. A Constitution set in stone for all time, incapable of providing the solution to future crises, would be not only a Constitution with something lacking, it would be the negation of the whole history of European integration. And that we must avoid at all costs if we want to perform our historic task responsibly.
In our work we need to keep a clear vision of the direction the Union should continue to follow. Peace, freedom and solidarity must continue to be our goals in the day-to-day work of the institutions. To do this, we must give the Union the practical tools to attain and hold to those goals. The Union must speak with a single voice in the world – a strong, authoritative, peaceable voice. Internally and externally it must be able to uphold the force of law which imposes duties but also protects the individuals, safeguarding their freedom to act in an ordered, creative society. Lastly, the Union must have the means to show solidarity. This takes the form of support for the poorest, in an inclusive society. It is expressed through joint action to provide assistance in the event of natural disasters. Lastly, it is based on the duty of mutual defence, in the conviction that the defence of each and every Member State is the best way to show we belong to a single family.
A new phase has now started: we must finish the good work done by the Convention – wisely, resolutely and with courage. Of course it needs to be finished quickly. But above all it needs to be finished properly. The Commission will continue to do its part to help achieve that aim.

Speech made at the European Parliament, Strasbourg, 3 September 2003