Any EU country's national government, the European Parliament or the Commission may submit to the Council a proposal to amend the Treaties; The Council submits these proposals to the European Council (consisting of the Heads of State and Government of the EU countries),the national Parliaments also being notified of the proposed procedure.

It therefore mandates the Council to convene an Intergovernmental Conference and to revise the Treaty, thus giving rise to the possibility that the 27 countries ratify the revision, thereby enabling the 18 MEPs to come here and the 12 countries involved to attain their full level of parliamentary representation.

It was in that very report on the Treaty of Amsterdam that we proposed that any amendment to Treaties be prepared beforehand by a Convention.

I wish to remember Dimitris Tsatsos today in particular, as we are on the threshold of carrying out the first reform of the Treaty of Lisbon, which, in the last analysis, Mr President, is the Constitutional Treaty for which we fought so hard.

the procedure for revising the Treaties will, in future, be more open and democratic, as the European Parliament will also acquire the power to submit proposals to that end, the scrutiny of any proposed revision must be carried out by a Convention which will include representatives of national parliaments and of the European Parliament, unless Parliament agrees that this is not necessary, while new simplified revision procedures are introduced for amending, by unanimous decision, certain provisions of the Treaty, with the approval of the national parliaments;

the procedure for revising the Treaties will, in future, be more open and democratic, as the European Parliament will also acquire the power to submit proposals to that end, the scrutiny of any proposed revision must be carried out by a Convention which will include representatives of national parliaments and of the European Parliament, unless Parliament agrees that this is not necessary, while new simplified revision procedures are introduced for amending, by unanimous decision, certain provisions of the Treaty, with the approval of the national parliaments;