Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-02-Speech-3-077"
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"en.20000202.6.3-077"2
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"Mr President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group considers that the agenda for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, as set by the Helsinki Council, i.e. focussing strictly on the issue of decision making in an enlarged Europe, must be adhered to. It must be adhered to in the interests of the fast, effective work of the conference, prior to enlargement. This is why we cannot subscribe to either the opinion of the European Parliament or indeed to that of the Commission, which both wish to widen this agenda far too much and, what is more, widen it in the wrong direction, i.e. moving towards centralisation and an ever tighter European system.
Our group has therefore tabled a raft of amendments which, when taken together, form a real alternative resolution. In them we say that the forthcoming IGC must look into a decision-making system that pays greater attention to national sovereignty. We deplore the fact that the Commission, in its opinion of 26 January, limits itself to following the routine path of a standardised Europe enlarging towards the East, a centralised superstate operating on the basis of majority decisions. The federalists imagine that they are thereby going to create unity through constraint, but this is a totally superficial concept.
Quite the opposite, in an enlarged Europe, Mr President, the standardisation imposed by the improper use of majority decisions can lead only to the whole thing exploding. Furthermore, the centralised European system, as we can see it developing today and as we can foresee it by extrapolation, erodes nations and, in eroding nations, erodes the national patriotism which forms the basis of our will to defend ourselves.
The Europe which results from this is not stronger but weaker, as it no longer knows what it is or what it is defending. This is why we have always said that enlargement was possible only if the diversity and freedom of the peoples of Europe was clearly recognised, i.e. by adopting flexibility founded upon the respect of national sovereignty. We are delighted today to see the progress this idea has enjoyed in certain circles, one which are still, unfortunately, outside the European Parliament and the Commission.
A flexible Europe, is a Europe which respects its national democracies, which relies on the support of its nations, its national patriotisms, instead of continually persecuting them. It is this that gives us the determination to defend ourselves against external threats, not the constraining, convoluted decision making procedures which the Commission thought it could propose at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference."@en1
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