During the intergovernmental conferences which gave birth to the Maastricht Treaty the federalist intergroup's political action suffered. The intergroup's members were convinced that the Parliament had a duty not to abandon its demands for a thorough-going and coherent reform of the Community, notably by drafting a Constitution in a democratic and therefore open process. The European Parliament, however pursued a double track. On the one hand it continued its reflection on a "European Constitution" based on the interim reports put forward by Emilio Colombo (EPP - It). On the other hand it gave even greater priority to the ongoing modifications of the Treaty - which were inevitably intergovernmental and dominated by diplomatic negotiations - in the hope that its more modest demands would be more easily accepted by the twelve Governments. An indeed, from the moment when the Luxemburg non-paper was published, the Twelve decided to look at almost every aspect of the Community's functioning, and this app

roach was even consolidated in the Maastricht Treaty. Unfortunately this diplomatic method both exaggerated the clandestine nature of the Treaty (exacerbating the "deficit of explanation" as Jacques Delors stressed in Strasbourg on 14 October), and also pushed aside the detailed views of the European Parliament. It is not therefore surprising that difficulties now appear in the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Once again it has been dramatically shown that an information campaign is needed to explain the advantages that come from European integration as well as to stress the necessity of a more democratic and transparent Europe. The Federalist Intergroup was right when it demanded a "constitutional" reform of the Community, a process that would be based on democracy and transparency. Immediately following the French referendum, the Federalist Intergroup diffused a political declaration which we published in September's newsletter. In addition, federalist deputies on the Institutional Committee

, meeting on 23 September 1992, in the presence of President Klepsch, requested the calling of an extraordinary session of the EP to discuss the "State of the Union". This initiative of certain members of the Institutional Committee (De Giovanni, Martin, Aglietta, Boissière, Spencer) joint with the Federalist Intergroup rapidly snow-balled, as by 25 September more than 100 deputies had signed a common letter addressed to the Enlarged Bureau of the EP. At its meeting on 30 September, the Enlarged Bureau decided to take responsibility for calling an extraordinary session of the Parliament on the eve of the special European Council meeting in Birmingham : it is thus that 350 MEPs participated in the plenary session on 14 October 1992 and a majority of them voted for a compromise resolution signed by four political groups (Soc., GUE, PPE, LDR) and by the Institutional Committee. Forty federalist deputies had in addition presented a "complementary resolution" to that signed by the groups. This had the basi

c aim of re-launching activity for a democratic and federal Europe in using a constitutional project. The "After-Maastricht" theme and the central need for a European Constitution proved to be a key point of debate within many political groups, and a delegation from the integroup was thus asked to join the Presidents of the Groups to produce a compromise text to be voted on in the plenary. 217 MEPs voted for an amendment signed by Jean-Louis Bourlanges (PPE - Fr), which confirmed the will of the EP to elaborate a draft constitution. Only 64 voted against. The Federalist Intergroup achieved its first success after a long wait in purgatory !