Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-01-Speech-3-081"
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"en.19991201.7.3-081"2
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"Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I would also like to express my satisfaction with the strategy, which is generally sensible and coherent as far as enlargement is concerned. However, although this vision, which is held both by the Council and the Commission on the issue of enlargement, may be ambitious, the same cannot be said about the content of the forthcoming IGC. In fact, what we have on the table now is merely a continuation of what could not be achieved in Amsterdam. I would say there is “plenty of ambition for enlargement and yet very little ambition for a revision of the Treaty of the Union itself”. There is even greater cause for concern when what we want to revise, that is the famous institutional triangle, is defended on the basis of an argument for efficiency and not on the basis of an overall vision of the European project. I do not think that anyone will be happy if the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of 2000 results in the Commission or the Council taking decisions in two hours which they previously took in five, six or seven. The project of European construction does not rest on the criterion of efficiency but on the criterion of cohesion and what we all hope is that, in Helsinki, a political agenda is set, and not a technical agenda with complicated political consequences.
In this regard, I would like to welcome the Portuguese Presidency’s willingness to grant the European Parliament’s representatives at this IGC the same status that will be given to the Commission as far as the personal representatives of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs are concerned. It also appears important that we take advantage of the Portuguese Presidency’s willingness to have the IGC start not in March but, if possible, as early as January.
As for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it is important that it is able not only to extend the rights that are already laid down in Charters and Treaties but also that it recognises rights in the social and economic spheres and, above all, that it is able to be innovative and creative in the area of new rights concerning environmental issues and the protection of consumer rights.
I shall now address a third point to which President Barón Crespo has already referred, concerning employment issues. The Union cannot only attempt to deal with employment issues when we are going through periods of economic slowdown. Our policies should be active, not reactive. We must take advantage of the current economic cycle and of the declaration that the Finnish Presidency will be making on the Millennium and the new information society, so that we find a creative way of recording sustained growth and so that the goal of full employment is actually achieved and does not remain a rhetorical phrase.
Finally, Mr President, I also support you in your intention to have the strategic lines that were laid down in the Tampere Council conclusions approved, specifically in the fight against drug trafficking, and I hope that the Portuguese Presidency will be willing to adopt its own action plan in the next six-monthly term."@en1
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