The institutional committee of the European Parliament met on the 5th and 6th of september in Brussels and its newly appointed members had a first exchange of ideas on the working programme for the next two years.

You will find in "Conference Federalism" regular updates and commentaries of the debates and the initiatives within the committee.

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Constituted in 1981 on the initiative of Altiero SPINELLI, and often regarded as the stronghold of "dreamers and federalists" in the EP, the institutional committee has always been at the center of the initiatives of the EP in view of the establishment of a political union.

Its main achievement is the drafting and the getting through the EP of the Treaty of European Union in 1984 (the Spinelli report) that remains today the basis of all proposals for a federal institutional setting of the EC/Union.

During the 1989/1994 mandate, the institutional committee had the task of following and trying to get the EP to play a role in the Maastricht Treaty negotiations, but the results of its efforts have not always been flattering and since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1991, the committee has gone through a period of lack of initiative and motivation.

After the troublesome ratification of the new Treaty, the institutional committee monitored and negotiated with the Council and the Commission the implementation of the new legislative provisions and, last but not least, drafted a "Constitution"; this text, anyhow, did not have the impact and the influence of the 1984 Spinelli report, because it never managed to become an issue in the debate on the future of the European Union in the member states and most political forces within the EP did not believe in it.

The last battle of the outgone institutional committee has been the attempt to link the negotiations for the enlargement of the EU to some changes in its decision making process, and notably the voting system within the Council and the powers of the EP. But the majority of the EP decided last May to go ahead with enlargement to Sweden, Finland, Austria and Norway and all these matters have been postponed to the 1996 reform.

The newly established institutional committee is larger than the previous one and its main task in the next years will be to propose to the rest of the EP a workable strategy in view of the next round of reform of the European Union foreseen for 1996. Already from its first meeting, nevertheless, it is clear that there is a wide range of opinions and approaches, going from the most ideological antifederalist positions to the most euroenthusiastic ones.

During this first meeting, three main issues were discussed: the form and contents of the EP proposals to the Intergovernemental conferences of 1996 (IGC); the participation to the reflection Group that, starting from June 1995, should prepare the work of the 1996 IGC; the procedure of nomination of the Commission (the EP will in fact have to vote on the programme and on the newCommission in december 1994). As it was to be expected, no conclusions were reached on any of these points.

The discussion will go on next september the 12th and 13th and there will certainly be some progress by then.

To be continued....

M.F.