TONY BROWN,
Sir, - Nuala Ahern MEP should really take care in choosing her "sources in Brussels". Her suggestion that the European Convention was the direct result of the Irish "No" is as baseless as much of the anti-Nice campaign.
In fact, the European Convention is the direct result of the Nice Treaty itself. The Declaration on the Future of Europe, attached to the treaty by the heads of state and government at Nice, called for "a deeper and wider debate about the future of the European Union" and asked the Belgian Presidency in 2001 to take steps to encourage wide-ranging discussions with all interested parties, including the candidate countries, and to produce "a declaration containing appropriate initiatives for the continuation of this process". The outcome was the Laeken Declaration which set up the European Convention.
The Nice Declaration made the significant statement that the EU leaders recognised "the need to improve and to monitor the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its institutions, in order to bring them closer to the citizens of the member states". It is clear, as some of us have argued for the past year, that these issues were not discovered overnight by Ms Ahern and the rest of the anti-Nice campaigners but had been fully recognised within the European Union institutions in the preparations for Nice. For example, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament had called for the establishment of a convention some time before the Nice Treaty was negotiated.
We are constantly told that Ms Ahern and her friends want a frank and open debate. It would help if absurd distortions of very recent history were avoided. - Yours, etc.,
TONY BROWN, Bettyglen, Raheny, Dublin 5.