One year after the Intergovernmental Conference held in Nice in December 2000 which launched the ‘Debate on the future of the European Union', the Laeken Declaration of 15 December 2001 redrafts and gives tangible form to the issues raised in Nice regarding a reform of the institutions. Accordingly, the Declaration sets out the key issues to be discussed at a Convention on the Future of Europe, whose inaugural session is to take place in Brussels on 28 February 2002: the division of competences between the Union and its Member States, the simplification of the Union's legislative instruments, the maintenance of interinstitutional balance and an improvement to the efficacy of the decision-making procedure, and the constitutionalisation of the Treaties.