Penelope''' was the code word given to a draft text of the

EU Constitution The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe (TCE; commonly referred to as the European Constitution or as the Constitutional Treaty) was an unratified international treaty intended to create a consolidated constitution for the European U ...

prepared for the President of the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

Romano Prodi Romano Antonio Prodi (; born 9 August 1939) is an Italian politician, economist, academic, senior civil servant, and business executive who served as the tenth president of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004. He served twice as Prim ...

, in 2001. The text was named after

Penelope Penelope ( ; Ancient Greek: Πηνελόπεια, ''Pēnelópeia'', or el, Πηνελόπη, ''Pēnelópē'') is a character in Homer's ''Odyssey.'' She was the queen of Ithaca and was the daughter of Spartan king Icarius and naiad Periboea. Pe ...

, the wife of

Odysseus Odysseus ( ; grc-gre, Ὀδυσσεύς, Ὀδυσεύς, OdysseúsOdyseús, ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; lat, UlyssesUlixes), is a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the ''Odyssey''. Odysse ...

Greek Mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

, who was perpetually spinning a web which she never completed.

History

After the creation of the European Single Currency, the European Commission decided that the EU should have a single constitution to replace the existing ad hoc system of multilateral treaties. The

Convention on the Future of Europe The Convention on the Future of the European Union, also known as the European Convention, was a body established by the European Council in December 2001 as a result of the Laeken Declaration. Inspired by the Philadelphia Convention that led to ...

, or the European Convention, was created by the

European Council The European Council (informally EUCO) is a collegiate body that defines the overall political direction and priorities of the European Union. It is composed of the heads of state or government of the EU member states, the President of the E ...

in December 2001 in order to propose a draft constitution for the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

. The Commission wanted to create an expanded system of

Qualified Majority Voting The procedures for voting in the Council of the European Union are described in the treaties of the European Union. The Council of the European Union (or simply "Council" or "Council of Ministers") has had its voting procedure amended by subsequ ...

to allow for more expediency in decision making. In a speech in Strasbourg in May 2002, Romano Prodi stated that the proposed reforms had a further intention: 'As regards the institutions, our proposals have a clear aim: to define more clearly who does what in the European Union. In other words, who is accountable politically and institutionally for action undertaken.' (emphasis in original) However, the European Convention did not lead to agreement on a possible Constitution. According to a 2005 review of the treaty reform process: "Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the chair of the Praesidium, made clear at an early stage his lack of sympathy for the Commission and for its President’s ambition that it should become the government of Europe, suggesting that it had served purpose in establishing the single market." The European Commission presented two communications to the Convention in 2002 laying out its policy preferences for a future constitution. These communications left out discussion of the architecture of European institutions until after the 2002 Irish Referendum on the

Treaty of Nice The Treaty of Nice was signed by European leaders on 26 February 2001 and came into force on 1 February 2003. It amended the Maastricht Treaty (or the Treaty on European Union) and the Treaty of Rome (or the Treaty establishing the European Co ...

. Prodi signalled his intention to influence the 'listening phase' of the Treaty consultations by creating the 'Penelope Group', "a small group of senior officials to prepare a draft Constitution in secret (European Commission, 2002c), which would be submitted to the Convention in the beginning of the ‘drafting phase’." However, the existence of the Penelope Group led to a disagreement with

Valéry Giscard D'Estaing Valéry René Marie Georges Giscard d'Estaing (, , ; 2 February 19262 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981. After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ...

, the chair of the Convention, who saw it as undermining his work. Secondly, "the ‘Penelope’ draft was leaked to Le Monde and newspapers in Germany, Italy and Spain only hours before the official December document (European Commission, 2002b) was approved by the college (Norman, 2003, 165). The appearance of two texts, virtually simultaneously, seriously undermined the commission's credibility, even if there was little difference in their substance." The Penelope Project document was seen by critics as an attempt to increase the importance and power of the Commission relative to the Parliament and Council, but the outcome of the treaty process saw the creation of the office of President of the European Union, rather than increasing the powers of the President of the commission.

References

{{Reflist Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe 2001 documents Romano Prodi