On February 25 Jean-Luc Dehaene, one of the most prominent European politicians, visited Stanford IIS. Dehaene was Prime Minister of Belgium for most of the 1990s. He was President of the European Council in 1993, and more recently Vice-President of the constitutional Convention on the Future of Europe.

Dehaene spoke about the prospects for the adoption of a European Union (EU) constitution and the challenges the EU is currently facing.

In May 2004, ten new countries, mainly from Central and Eastern Europe, will be joining the EU's current 15 members. Dehaene pointed at the importance of the enlargement process for the political and economic stability in Eastern Europe. In the early 1990s the EU set out a road map for membership for the Eastern European countries, with clear criteria for accession. Meeting these conditions became a major policy objective, and this created a consistent and coherent policy environment in Eastern Europe, according to Dehaene.

The ten countries are now ready for membership. The EU itself, however, is ill prepared. Its institutions were setup in the 1950s for a Union of six. That is why the EU called a constitutional Convention to reform its institutions and make sure that an EU with 25 members function efficiently. The constitution also seeks to increase the transparency of the political process, and to increase the EU's effectiveness in a globalized world.

Dehaene concluded that the member states have reached agreement on 95 percent of the constitution, and that a final text could be approved by the end of the year.