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| Title |
The European Convention
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| Document type |
Synopsis
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| Source |
Pierre Gerbet. Translated by the CVCE.
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| Keywords |
Benelux countries, Convention on the Future of Europe, EC Intergovernmental Conference, European Constitution, Laeken European Council, Thessaloniki European Council
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| Copyright |
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| Caption |
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| Location in the digital library |
HISTORICAL EVENTS >> 1998–2009 The unification of Europe >> A Constitution for Europe >> The European Convention
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| Document extract |
The European Convention
At the Laeken European Council (14 and 15 December 2001), Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt presented a draft declaration defining the objectives and proposing a working method. The governments were divided. Only the founding countries were determined to move forward, although they disagreed on the federal destiny of the united Europe. The others were hesitant, fearing the creation of a political entity dominated by the big countries. Britain only wanted to go as far as strengthening the Council of Ministers, as did Spain and the Nordic countries. Finally, the long Laeken Declaration on ‘the future of the European Union’ was adopted and appended to the Presidency conclusions. ‘The Union needs to become more democratic, more transparent and more efficient. It also has to resolve three basic challenges: how to bring citizens, and primarily the young, closer to the European design and the European institutions, how to organise politics and the European political area in an enlarged Union and how to develop the Union into a stabilising factor and a model in the new, multipolar world. In order to address them a number of specific questions need to be put.’ The Declaration goes on to pose several sets of questions grouped under the headings ‘a better division and definition of competence in the European Union’, ‘simplification of the Un (...) Read more in ENA |
| See also |
Opinion of the European Central Bank on the European Constitution (19 September 2003)
Cartoon by Sakurai on the dangers threatening the future European Constitutional Treaty (21 June 2003)
Document from the 2003 IGC — Naples Ministerial Conclave (25 November 2003)
Laeken Declaration on the future of the European Union (15 December 2001)
Press conference held to mark the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference (Rome, 4 October 2003)
Statement by Tony Blair on the Laeken Declaration (London, 17 December 2001)
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