Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-132"
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"en.20001025.6.3-132"2
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".
Leaving aside the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which, in an ageing Europe, where we will see more than 50 million people aged over 75 in two decades' time, has made no provision for strengthening the right to economic, social and human protection, Biarritz was concerned mainly with axing the number of issues requiring unanimity, the only procedure that can respect the interests of the people, and with the curious invention of closer cooperation, also known as the Europe of circles, the Europe of pioneers, the
Europe, vanguard Europe, ‘variable geometry’ or two-speed Europe.
From 1951 in Paris, to 1997 in Amsterdam, via 1957 in Rome, what has been going on? Europe was created by Treaties concluded, obviously, between equal states. Moreover, over and above the legal aspect, Europe is a great family of civilisations in emotional terms. We all have the same home. Now, the idea of closer cooperation means that in crucial areas, such as money, defence and taxation, some members of the European family would have more rights and obligations than others.
In other words, among those sitting round the table of the common European home, some would eat
while others would get the dish of the day. Some would have a say about money while others, like Denmark or Sweden, would have to hold their tongue.
As we saw before the existence of total, universal suffrage, there would be active “peoples” and observer “peoples”. There would, in a sense, be “males” with the right to talk war, taxes and money and, as in pre-1945 France, “females” sitting round the table with no right to decide.
Moreover, in this ‘variable-geometry’ Europe, the number of guests with the right to eat
would vary depending on the subject under discussion in the European Council of Ministers and this state of affairs would create further complexity in a Europe whose way of operating is already quite obscure.
In other words, the philosopher's stone of closer cooperation, which would allow the rule of unanimity and the right of veto, which protects national interests, to be circumvented on the sly, would achieve the amazing feat of violating the principle of equality between states, excluding minority nations from key issues, thus opening up cracks in the democratic foundations of European integration, making the European institutions even less transparent and spreading confusion, if not disarray, within the Council and the Commission.
Once again, the technocratic smokescreen and verbal fog are conceal machinations intended to foist on the peoples a military and fiscal Europe that they do not want and to deprive them of their right to say no to the loss of their national freedoms."@en1
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