popular election of the President was introduced, with provision for a second ballot where necessary. The new system was used for the first time in 1994. The President's term of office was also limited to two consecutive terms of six years, and the President’s powers were limited to only dissolving Parliament on receipt of a reasoned request from the Prime Minister and having first consulted the Speaker and the party groups in Parliament. The 1991 reform also amended the provisions in the Constitution Act and the Parliament Act relating to State finances. The extensive reform of Basic Rights in Chapter II of the Constitution Act came into force in August 1995, and the remaining powers of a one third minority to postpone ordinary legislation to the next Parliament were abolished, marking the final transition to majority parliamentarism in respect to ordinary legislation. In the 1990s, the need to integrate and update the constitutional legislation was seen as urgent. For instance, while in most other European countries constitutional provisions are all contained within a single constitutional act, in Finland, they were fragmented and contained across several acts. The process of constitutional reform began in the late 1990s, after Finland's accession to the European Union, partly because of the arguments which had emerged between the Parliament and the President when arrangements were being made for decision-making in European affairs, such as whether the President should participate in the meetings of the European Council together with the Prime Minister. In 1995, a working group of experts, called the Constitution 2000 Working Group, was appointed to examine the need to consolidate and update the constitutional legislation. The Working Group proposed that all constitutional provisions be brought together into a single statute and concluded that the most important questions of constitutional law to be addressed in the reform were the reduction of the scope of constitutional regulation, the development of relations between the highest organs of government, the clarification of questions of power and responsibility in international affairs, and constitutional recognition of European Union membership. The Working Group also drew up a proposal for the structure of the new Constitution. After the Working Group had delivered its report, in 1996 the Government appointed the Constitution 2000 Commission to draft a proposal for a new, integrated Constitution to come into force on 1 March 2000. The Commission was instructed to draft its proposal for a new