Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-09-15-Speech-3-044"
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"en.19990915.5.3-044"2
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"Madam President, our Parliament, though it may not be aware of it, is not without a sense of humour. In the Watson resolution, it says it is convinced that European citizens are tired of proclamations and fine declarations, and in the Napolitano resolution, it proposes nothing less than to carry out a purely stylistic exercise, grabbing the bone which the Council offered its pet dog, in the form of the writing of this great Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We already have a Charter, the European Convention on Human Rights, we have constitutions, but, otherwise, as a number of Members have pointed out moreover, we have no Communitisation of the Third Pillar, we have no democratic policy as regards foreign affairs. Let us move in this direction then. I think that this is just one more in a series of great exercises in mental masturbation, such as Parliament has been familiar with.
For two or three years, or perhaps a little less, this Parliament will debate this great Charter, thereby affirming its own European view of human rights, while we know full well that the Chinese have a quite different view. All we are doing is promoting these mechanisms. There will be a lot of talking and a lot of self-congratulation, as we have seen some Members doing already – and I am sorry that Mr Schulz dropped the debate in the end by leaving the sitting – but I would like to say that perhaps this Parliament should look into democracy in its own house.
Yesterday, we witnessed, and I thank the 90 Members who did not go along with this reasoning, we witnessed, once again, the denial of the rights of minorities in this Parliament. We could carry on in this way, and crow over the minorities of the whole world. But perhaps we would be better advised to start to realise that the construction of Europe rests upon foundations which are so undemocratic that there is nothing to choose between the many states in the world which we often criticise and this so-called democratic system we have today.
So, perhaps, we should go back to the basics, reject this bone the Council tossed to us, as its dog, and get down to asking for fundamental reforms, especially the reform we ought to require of ourselves, so that this Parliament may become a true Parliament and not the instrument of bureaucracies which it is increasingly becoming."@en1
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