Dear Mr. Durand,

The President of the European Commission, Mr. Barroso, has received your letter dated from March 19 and asked me to answer.

He gives vivid thanks for your interest in the European elections and the ‘treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe’.

We have taken note of your observations concerning the recognition of the white ballots in the European elections. Let me however share some comments relative to your letter.

The European Parliament is the only supranational institution whose members are democratically elected through direct universal suffrage. Each member state determines its mode of election but applies identical democratic rules: right to vote at age 18, equality of men and women, secrecy of vote. The recognition of the white ballots is an interesting question. However, the issue of recognising them, or not, is leaved up to the appreciation of each member state. It should be noted that the European elections are already characterized by a certain number of common rules: the direct universal suffrage, the proportional rule, the renewable mandate for five years.

The European Union, its institutions and its functioning derive their legitimacy from international European treatises (the Treaty of Rome, of Brussels, of Maastricht, of Amsterdam, of Nice…) which have been signed and ratified by the member States in conformity with the current international regulation. To remind, these treatises have been signed by the Heads of the member States or of democratically elected governments, and ratified by democratically elected national Parliaments, or by referendum.

The “treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe” contains number of democratic breakthroughs and not only the European citizen’s initiativeyou are referring to: the procedure of co-legislation with the European Parliament and the Council of (national) ministers becomes a rule; the national parliaments are given, for the first time, the right for looking at and intervening into the decision-making European process; the three community pillars are fused, which allows for a better democratic control of, among others, the foreign policy regarding the common security, or of policy of justice relative to home affaires (asylum, immigration …); the Union can finally join the European convention for the human rights, etc.

Please accept, dear Mr. Durand, my best regards,

Mario TENREIRO

Chef d’unité