Almeida Garrett (PPE-DE). – (PT) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Convention has presented its responses to the questions posed at Laeken in the form of a draft Constitution. We are all aware and appreciative of the high quality and lofty ambitions of those responses. They are not desultory, but form one body, whose feet are firmly planted on the ground and which is prepared, with great pragmatism, to imagine a responsible and challenging future for Europe.

The thinking behind the draft on the table is not short-termist or experimental. As a Constitution, this text aspires to permanence. As the work of human hands, however, it is not perfect or polished. It can and should be fine-tuned, as long as its basic equilibrium is maintained. The Gil-Robles – Tsatsos report is very clear in that regard. The Intergovernmental Conference can and should make the text of the Constitution more coherent, and improve some of its proposals. In this connection, I would like to support what the rapporteur, Mr Gil-Robles, and the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, have already said about the problems of the two-tier regime for the composition and functioning of the Commission, which, to my mind, is undesirable because it is inefficient.

Commissioner Barnier spoke to us a moment ago of nostalgia, warning us that it is not a good guide in politics. I can think of no better advice to give the Heads of Government charged with approving the Constitution at the next Intergovernmental Conference, for the process they are currently overseeing is not like previous revisions of the Treaties. The Convention was not simply a preparatory phase, as its predecessors were. It led to very important political balances and consensuses being achieved, and they should remain intact. The Heads of Government, therefore, are obliged to do much better. The responsibility they bear is thus much greater.