When a pigmy acts as a giant

The Italian representatives in the Brussels Constitutional Convention played a greater role than expected. The Italians, who many thought would be destined to a role as pigmies in the Convention because of ideological differences and the personal mistrust they carried from their domestic arena, acted mostly as giants in the contributions they provided to the final text. The representatives of both the government and the opposition identified a series of points upon which they agreed and which were introduced in the final document. These positions, although not federalist, were much more advanced than those described as 'intergovernmental' or 'confederal'. There were many reasons for this. The deliberative method adopted in the Convention probably helped this convergence. Certainly, the Italians wanted to keep open the dialogue with the main EU member-states at a moment when the war with Iraq was undermining it, and the Italian representatives in the Convention shared a pro-European attitude, while this attitude was being called into question in the domestic arena by the Berlusconi government

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