Madam, - Breda O'Brien's long essay on the EU draft constitution (Opinion, January 10th) is based on the argument that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing would like us to view the convention in the same way as the process of framing the American constitution.
Speaking at the Library of Congress, Washington, on February 11th, 2003, Giscard said: "Of course, to compare the situation of the European Union at the beginning of the 21st century with the situation of the Founding Fathers faced at the end of the 18th century is facile and misleading. Our aims are not as grand as theirs: we are not building a nation. But in some ways our task is trickier, because we are a Europe of many nations, and with strikingly disparate dimensions, territorial and demographic, wealth, and living standards."
The italics are mine. In my experience as an adviser to the European Convention, President Giscard d'Estaing always chose his words well. - Yours, etc.,
TONY BROWN, Bettyglen, Dublin 5.