The Foreign Affairs ministers will sign the Treaty, which leads to the enlargement of Europe with the presence of Jacques Chirac and Goeran Persson, previous and current president of the Union.
We take the same and start again. The fifteen Member States will sign on Monday February 26th at 7.30 PM at the prefecture of Nice, the treaty negotiated with pain during the longest summit of the European Union’s history. This treaty of Nice is particularly important since it prepares the membership of new countries in the Community. If the city of Nice will be once again in state of alert, this summit will gather far less people and will only last an evening. The delegations won’t be there, neither the overall Heads of States and this time it will only be a formality, contrary to the summit from December 7th to 11th, which gathered for more than four days several thousands of persons of the fifteen countries of the Union and the twelve applying countries for membership.
The Treaty will be ratified by the Foreign Affairs ministers of the fifteen Member States, with the presence of the President, Jacques Chirac, president of the European Union during the summit and Lionel Jospin, Prime Minister, as well as the Swedish Prime Minister, Goeran Persson, current president of the European Union, the president of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, and Romano Prodi, president of the Commission. Nicole Fontaine and Romano Prodi will intervene briefly at 7.30 PM before the Treaty to be signed. A dinner at the prefecture will follow.
The new Treaty of the Union, before coming into force, will have to be ratified by the European Parliament and the national Parliaments, according to the pace and procedure of each State. The Elysée wished that France gave the example and that the ratification by the French Parliament came rapidly. A bit more than two months after this “historical summit”, where “small” and “large” countries of the Union confronted, the analysts estimate that if Nice conducted to a first step towards the enlargement of Europe, the summit gave more the image that Europe was dominated by national egoism. Many problems haven’t been settled whereas the future structure of the Union, which will allow the European Union to work with 27 Member States, will be the matter of new negotiations in 2004.