Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-03-Speech-1-091"
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"en.20000703.6.1-091"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I wish to thank all the honourable Members for their speeches and to ask the Vice-President to convey my thanks to any Members who are absent for their contributions.
Here we come to the crux of another issue that will be extremely important for life in our societies in the coming decades: our ability to live together with different people, to promote tolerance in our societies and to combat xenophobia and racism in their various forms. We must do this – and let us be quite clear about this – because xenophobia and racism do exist in our societies, in all our countries. They are a social phenomenon, and it would be appalling if political movements, particularly those with aspirations to govern, were to attempt to use xenophobia and racism in order to win votes. I would like to make it quite clear…
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... I would like to make it quite clear that this runs completely counter to European values. If we have to accept the fact, for reasons of the sovereignty of States, that these political movements might hold governmental positions in our States, I have to say in all honesty that, in my opinion, a political movement that uses xenophobia as a means of winning votes and gaining power does not have the same set of values that I do. I do not, therefore, have any problem with winning or losing face with regard to the action that I, my government, and the governments of fourteen other Member States took when, in Austria, a party came to power, which in our opinion, did not respect these basic values. Having said this, I also wish to say that we, the Portuguese Presidency of the Union, were greatly concerned to do something, which has never been easy, as you will all be aware, to ensure that Austria participated fully in all of the Union’s work. In addition to this, we were concerned to ensure that Austria’s representatives were treated with the proper respect, including the FPÖ Government representatives to all Council bodies. The Presidency sought to do this because it was convinced that the government of a sovereign State such as mine has the right to hold a particular opinion regarding the government of another sovereign State, and I do not relinquish this right because I am a representative of a sovereign State. The workings of the Union are another matter, however, and I feel that, as far as the European Union is concerned, it is our duty to fully ensure that the Union functions as it should.
Of course, with regard to the decisions of the fourteen Member States on relations between their governments and the Austrian Government, a procedure is currently being defined which will enable us to reassess these decisions when the time it right. These decisions were, as I said, taken strictly at bilateral level, and have not affected the workings of the Union, because the Portuguese Presidency has not allowed them to. Nor has the Presidency allowed these decisions, in the face of great pressure for it do to otherwise, to affect Austria’s presence or respect for Austria’s representatives in any of the Union activities over which it was our duty to preside.
I should like to address some of the central issues that have arisen in this debate. Firstly, the danger of a shift towards an intergovernmental approach. I am particularly happy to speak about this subject because I have, for a long time, publicly advocated the need for the Union to move gradually towards a single pillar structure. Furthermore, the Portuguese Presidency has proved that it does not want to see a shift towards an intergovernmental approach. Firstly, at the Intergovernmental Conference itself, the Presidency tried to include the European Parliament to a much greater extent than was provided for in the Helsinki decisions. Secondly, the Lisbon strategy entrusted the Commission with a set of essential tasks, highlighting the Commission’s crucial role in all aspects relating to the method for open coordination between the Union’s economic and social policies.
Before the Feira Summit, we also held a forum attended by representatives of Parliament, the Commission and the Council, Member States, and also the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank, the Economic and Social Council, the Committee of the Regions and our social partners. I therefore fully agree with all those who feel that the Union’s true nature must be preserved as a Union and strengthened as such, and that a shift towards an intergovernmental approach is highly undesirable.
Secondly, the Intergovernmental Conference. It was not the Portuguese Presidency’s responsibility to conclude the work of the Intergovernmental Conference. It was to do what we did, which was to produce a very detailed report on all the positions and all the possible alternatives on matters arising from what have become known as the ‘leftovers’ from Amsterdam. At the same time, we tried to generate a consensus, which did not exist in Helsinki, guaranteeing that closer cooperation would be included on the agenda of the Conference, as we feel that this is intimately related to issues of extending voting by qualified majority within the Council and, perhaps, also the Council’s relationship in procedures for codecision with the European Parliament. This is also connected to the idea that closer cooperation is not designed to destabilise the European Union, but must be undertaken within the Union framework and must not contain any mechanism for arbitrary decisions or for exclusion. Closer cooperation has the potential to be, under the Union’s rules, a crucial instrument for strengthening integration within an enlarged and more heterogeneous Union. The next question would be: will it be possible to conclude the IGC? To my mind, the issue is now quite clear. I see the Intergovernmental Conference, as we all do, as a set of changes which are necessary for enlargement, and the options are today quite obvious to everyone. This report identifies these options very clearly. If the political will is there, IGC could be concluded within a month. The question is whether the essential will to commit ourselves exists, because we all know what the possible commitments are: either we wish to make these commitments together or we do not, and my conviction is that there will be the political will and that, therefore, it will be perfectly possible to conclude the work on this during the French Presidency.
With regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, I feel particularly comfortable with this issue, because the Portuguese Government has always recommended that a Charter of Fundamental Rights should be included in the Treaty. As is also clear, we have always tried, without being instructed to do so, to include this item on the agenda of the Feira Summit, and to ask the chairman of the Convention to present a progress report to the European Council. The European Council would not be able to take a decision on including it on the IGC agenda until the Convention itself had decided whether or not the content of this Charter should be legally binding. The Council, however, did decide that this issue would remain in the open so that, as soon as the Convention gives a clear ruling on the issue, the Charter of Fundamental Rights could be included on the agenda of the IGC. My desire, the desire of the Portuguese Government, is that this Charter should become a fundamental instrument of the Union.
With regard to enlargement, various speakers have said that enlargement cannot be delayed. The evidence that I can give you is that there has been no delay in the last six months. As I said a few minutes ago, we closed 72 dossiers for negotiation in six months. Even in relation to countries whose negotiations only started during the Portuguese Council Presidency, such as Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and Malta, I can say the following. With regard to Latvia, eight chapters were opened and five were closed; in relation to Lithuania, eight were opened and five were closed; eight and six for Slovakia; five and five for Romania; five and four for Bulgaria; and in relation to Malta, eight and seven. This shows that we were working at top speed, in excellent cooperation with the Commission – and I must here emphasise the role of Commissioner Verheugen – in order to move forward as quickly as possible with the work on enlargement.
The Lisbon Summit laid down a strategy. Today we all recognise the fact that we are going to be living in an information society with a knowledge-based economy. The big question is whether or not this society will be inclusive, whether or not everyone will share in it. The essence of this strategy’s vision of Europe is that it must be inclusive, and the European answer to making it inclusive is what we call an education-based society, which is essentially concerned with lifelong education and training, as has been stressed today. Three months after a huge range of decisions were taken, it was not the Feira Summit’s task to conclude the process. Nevertheless, the Feira Summit has already approved a set of fundamental documents. For example, we have discussed small businesses and the European Charter for Small Enterprises has been approved. We have talked about the information society and the information society action plan has been approved. Much has been said about combating poverty, and three extremely important reports are already under consideration, which will enable decisions to be taken in the short term by the Commission, on fighting social exclusion and by the High Level Working Group, now the Committee on Social Protection, in the field of social exclusion and the sustainability of retirement pensions. In other words, I am genuinely convinced that we can make very rapid progress. In line with what Commissioner Patten said, the Commission is preparing the set of indicators for September, which will enable us to give form and content to the various forms of policy coordination that have been defined.
With regard to the tax package, it is not by chance that we have been waiting twelve years for an agreement to be concluded. When it takes twelve years to conclude an agreement, it is because the agreement is far from easy to conclude. An agreement that is not easy to conclude is not a perfect agreement, but it is a necessary compromise. I am firmly convinced that the political will that was present in this agreement will also be present when it comes to implementing it. Therefore, in response to the questions that have been put to me, I think that the timetable will be adhered to. In terms of unanimity on tax matters, the basic problem is that the decision on whether there can be decisions that do not require unanimity must itself be reached unanimously. There has so far been no indication that this unanimity can be reached within the Union.
I would just like to briefly mention two other issues. The first concerns the incident at Dover, which shocked us all. What lies behind the incident at Dover, however, is that we have to recognise the inability that Europe has shown to date to fully understand the phenomenon of an ageing population. What this means is that Europe must have its own immigration policy and also the ability to work together on this immigration policy with the home countries of those who wish to come and work in Europe. At the same time, from a social point of view, we need to guarantee a series of measures that will enable these people to integrate harmoniously into our societies. This is the key issue and this is the issue on which the Commission has now been instructed to work in certain crucial areas, which, we feel, will result in very important decisions for the European Union in the near future."@en1
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