Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-03-Speech-1-064"
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"en.20000703.6.1-064"2
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"Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the rotating presidency is one of the cornerstones of our Union. It is evidence that we are united on the path of cooperation and that we do not take the imperial route of some countries dominating others. In addition to this, it works well, as the Portuguese Presidency has clearly demonstrated. The fact that the Portuguese Presidency was a success and that comments on it have been universally positive confirms and reinforces the truth of this situation and our belief in it. As a Portuguese citizen, a non-federalist and a European, I can only be delighted, in spite of our political differences. Those who wish to see the Union’s system of a rotating presidency changed are wrong. It is not true that only the large and powerful countries can preside over the Union. The presidency can and must be divided between Member States, since this is symbolic of the fact that we share a common path.
If there is one negative side to this six-month term, it is the Austrian question. The Portuguese Presidency alone cannot be blamed for the mistake, as I have to call it. It was a mistake committed by everyone, when they pushed the ‘Fourteen’ – and what is this ‘Fourteen’ anyway? – to excess and into an impasse. In the European Parliament alone, 406 Members supported this disastrous move. We cannot develop a short memory once we realise our mistake. Austria held elections and will continue to do so. Free elections. They did nothing that constitutes a violation of the Treaties and their guarantees. The real issue is the violation of fundamental principles with regard to a Member State, which sets a dangerous precedent of arrogance or tyranny. It has never been clear why the Presidency of the Union became involved in a course of action that was supposed to fall under the terms of bilateral relations.
Today there is growing embarrassment. Everyone is wandering around with a torch, looking for a graceful way out. There will certainly be a way out, but I doubt that it will be a graceful one. It is now the responsibility of the French Presidency to find it. It has always been said that the French authorities were largely responsible for the mistake that was made, so it is therefore appropriate that they should now resolve the problem.
The Portuguese Presidency attempted to bring some basic realism back to certain fundamental issues. With regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the presidency made its position clear at the Feira Summit, keeping strictly to the terms of the mandate granted to it by the Cologne European Council. It is amazing, hearing some of the ideas that are being bandied around, how far some people wish to force us to go beyond the limited suggestion made in Cologne. We shall see!
As to the IGC, the signs given at the start of the French Presidency are, in contrast, quite worrying. We are all aware of the differences of opinion and the difficulties that already existed. Given such a situation, how are we to interpret the French Presidency’s recent initiative to go to Berlin and announce a completely different agenda for the future of the Union? Jacques Chirac’s speech to the Bundestag was ill-judged and ill-timed. It showed a lack of vision and a lack of respect, from what one can see. It served only to create distrust in an atmosphere that is already very sensitive. This type of speech is not pro-European, and in fact, is clearly anti. The authors, from the French UDF, of a recently published draft European constitution, made it quite clear: any Member State failing to comply with the constitution would lose its place in the Union and be reduced to the status of a mere partner. What kind of madness is this? Where is the sense in such a contradiction?
A final word: the French Presidency has the responsibility of not ruining what the Portuguese Presidency has managed to achieve through basic realism. Any idea of a pioneer group does not correspond to the idea of European cooperation that unites us. This obsession with hard cores or pioneer groups will only serve to create a perverse dialectic and an increasing and divisive tension between the countries who see themselves as leaders and those who do not want to be led and will not accept this. This is not the Europe to which we belong."@en1
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