Prodi and Gyurcsány were addressing a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus in Berlin before meeting to discuss preparations for the EU summit in Brussels next week. „If we don’t make a step forward, we will make a step back,” Prodi said, adding, however, that he was „much more confident” of progress on the constitution than he had been six months earlier.
Gyurcsány stressed the need to „preserve as much as possible of the treaty,” noting that Hungary had been the second EU country to ratify the original treaty, rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands two years ago. „The problem is that our citizens see us debating about something they are at a loss to understand. The leading politicians in Europe for two or three years seem to be bogged down on these issues,” he said.
The EU was more than an economic community and the values contained in the original constitution had to be maintained, the Hungarian leader said, adding that minority rights were particularly important to Hungary. Asked whether new French President Nicholas Sarkozy and outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who have both expressed reserve on the constitutional process, would put a brake on progress, Prodi said the two years had been „a great teacher to all Europeans.”
Merkel would not be drawn on a question whether Poland, which has raised strong objections to any change within the European Council of Ministers that would reduce its voting power, would pose a major stumbling block. The German EU presidency is aiming at an inter-governmental conference on the issue during the forthcoming Portuguese presidency to draw up a compromise, and probably slimmed-down treaty by the end of the year. This would leave 2008 for all 27 member states to ratify it, so that the treaty would be in place by the 2009 elections to the European Parliament.
The constitution is to top the agenda at the final summit under the German presidency in Brussels on June 21 and 22. Italy, Hungary and Lithuania have all ratified the original constitution by large parliamentary majorities, while German ratification awaits the outcome of a constitutional court battle after its parliament also passed a ratification motion. (jurnalo.com)
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