European Union (EU) leaders ended their summit meeting on Saturday with the Laeken Declaration, paving the way for deeper political reforms in the future.
At the two-day summit in the Belgian royal palace of Laeken in suburbs of Brussels, leaders from all 15 EU member states launched a convention to review "the future of Europe" in the hope of increasing efficiency and bringing the bloc closer to European citizens.
A 105-member convention will work for about one year from March 2002 to study the EU's shortcomings and to propose structural political changes.
They appointed the former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing as its chairman, and two former prime ministers, Giuliano Amato of Italy and Jean-Luc Dehaene of Belgium, as vice-chairmen. The three men will lead the convention to hold massive consultation with representatives of civil society on what kind of a constitution the union needs in the future.
Under the convention's findings, EU leaders at their next intergovernmental conference will decide the form of a constitution and structural reforms for a larger and modernized union.
The declaration says that the EU "stands at a crossroads, a defining moment in its existence", as it prepares to admit 10 new members in 2004 and to play a bigger role in world affairs.
During the summit, the leaders announced the name list of 10 countries expected to join the EU in 2004: Cyprus, Czech Republic,Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
They also decided to contribute 4,000 troops to a U.N.-backed Afghanistan peacekeeping force, to urge Israel to resume contacts with Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority, and to declare the European rapid reaction force ready for crisis management.
However, the leaders failed to agree on an EU-NATO accord on logistic support for the rapid reaction force because of Greek objections. Greece fears that an agreement with NATO member Turkey, allowing the force access to NATO facilities, would give Turkey too much say in EU affairs.
Though the summit declared the force "operational" for small-scale humanitarian missions, Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt of Belgium, holder of EU presidency, said it could take "weeks or months" before the final obstacles are removed.
(Xinhua News Agency December 17, 2001)
