Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-121"
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"en.20001212.6.2-121"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are winners and losers, but Europe cannot claim to be one of the winners and democracy and transparency certainly cannot. That is, in fact, the gist of what President Prodi said today in a commendably clear and unequivocal manner.
Let us take one thing at a time: the charter was not included in the Treaty, not so much as a mention. Progress was made on security and defence policy, it is true, but it has no parliamentary dimension. As far as qualified majority voting is concerned, it has only been extended slightly and the procedure is now even more complicated and less transparent than before. We do, of course, have reinforced cooperation, but how it will work remains to be seen. The ratio between large and small was, in the end, regulated in a perfectly reasonable manner, following a number of totally obtuse and unacceptable suggestions, and the Commission has been strengthened, even if the link with the number of members is not necessarily an overly reasonable or clever decision.
Mr Moscovici is without doubt quite right to say that talking about it among ourselves is not enough; we must tell the people about it. It is true that the people are probably more critical of integration more often than we here in the Chamber. And with a better result, we would probably have had more trouble persuading the people, but then again we would have had more persuasive powers had we been able to bring a better result home from Nice. We would have been able to convey a better, stronger European result to the people with a better and clearer conscience.
I should therefore like to come back to something which has been touched on a few times today already. Yes, we need to analyse the result. But I think that we should not do so until we have a clear and unequivocal promise from the Council as to how the process will operate from now on, i.e. with the close involvement of the European Parliament. What was found and said in Nice is too vague for me: yes to Parliament's involvement. What involvement? I think it is a disgrace if we have to fight yet again for perhaps two representatives to attend as many meetings as possible. It is totally unacceptable. This Parliament must play a leading role in this process, just as it did at the convention. We want to prove to the heads of government that we know best. If we compare the convention with what happened at the Intergovernmental Conference, admittedly with less serious problems than at the Intergovernmental Conference and with fewer national interests than at the Intergovernmental Conference, then the convention and the
and methods of the convention clearly come out on top. I therefore take the view that we should only apply ourselves in detail to what has come out of Nice once it is clear that the European Parliament will have an important and decisive role in the future process. We want to prove to the heads of government that we know best."@en1
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