By Filipe Rufino - 22nd May 2007
MEPs are urging Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende to help salvage as much as possible of the European constitution.
The Hague favours slimming down the original constitution text to a mini-treaty, leaving aside its most polemic elements such as the European foreign minister.
At a hearing in Strasbourg, parliament's EPP-ED group leader Joseph Daul urged the Dutch premier to help save “the best bits of the constitutional treaty” at a crunch EU summit next month.
Socialist group leader Martin Schulz said Balkenende should accept a treaty “with no anthem, no flag and a foreign minister with a different title.”
“The crucial issue is not the title but the substance," he told Balkenende.
MEPs also criticised the Dutch prime minister for allegedly lacking leadership, with Schulz saying he “didn’t pull all the stops” to defend the treaty at home.
Liberal group leader Graham Watson went further, urging Balkenende to “stop having the tail wag the dog and lead the Netherlands back into Europe”.
The Dutch prime minister was addressing MEPs Wednesday in Strasbourg on the future EU constitutional treaty, a day after a strongly-worded pro-constitution address from Italian premier Romano Prodi.
Balkenende’s main argument is that any compromise text would have to ensure a more efficient functioning of the EU institutions as well as increasing its legitimacy by creating stronger links with national parliaments.
“We have to take into account the reason why 62 per cent of our citizens voted against,” he told the chamber, referring to the referendum on the European Constitution held in the Netherlands on 1 June, 2005.
"We need to continue with the Monnet method: moving ahead via small, but significant increments,” he said.
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