Today, 16 February 2011, the MEP Spinelli Group met for the third time. Some 50 MEPs gathered in the European Parliament to discuss a common position on Treaty Change, economic governance and electoral reform.

The MEP Spinelli Group is one of the initiatives of the Spinelli Group, founded by Guy Verhofstadt, Daniël Cohn-Bendit, Sylvie Goulard and Isabelle Durant. The aim of the Spinelli group is to promote a federal and post-national Europe and the use of the Community method in the European Union. The Steering Group contains politicians, academics and writers such as Jacques Delors, Joschka Fischer, Amartya Sen, Mario Monti and Pat Cox. Already 2150 European citizens have signed the manifesto, including 91 MEPs from five different political Groups in the European Parliament.

The MEP Spinelli Group, co-chaired by Andrew Duff and Sergio Cofferati had a presentation by Elmar Brok and Roberto Gualtieri, co-rapporteurs in the European Parliament on the Treaty change.

The view of the MEP Spinelli Group is that the European Parliament ought only to give its opinion before the 24th of March on the proposal of the European Council on Treaty change if the Council is willing to enter into real negotiations with the Parliament on the wording of the change. This opinion of the Parliament is legally needed in order to move forward with a possible Treaty change. The MEP Spinelli Group is convinced that the way the change is put forward must be reformulated. The mechanism must be handled within the current Institutions, with the European Commission in the lead. 

Finally the group welcomed the initiative of a second Spinelli Debate between Ulrich Beck and Amin Malouf on "European identity, myth or reality? The debate will take place on March 15, 2011 at 17.30h in the European Parliament.

For more information:

Koert Debeuf

koert.debeuf@europarl.europa.eu

0032 496 614375