Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-17-Speech-3-188"
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"en.20010117.6.3-188"2
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"Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Prime Minister Persson. This is the first time that Sweden has held the presidency of the Council and it has outlined its priorities, the famous 3 Es, which are in line with the manifesto of the European Socialists and Social Democrats, because I am able to say with pride that Mr Persson and his party belong to my own political family, and the statement which the Swedish Prime Minister has made here in favour of the European social model and its ability to adapt in this era of globalisation is a further source of pride.
That brings me, Madam President, to what really is my final point, to say that you could have added another E to the European process, and I say this as a Spaniard, and that would be the Spanish word for ‘hope’
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On employment, I would like to tell him that he can count on our support at the Stockholm Summit for talks on employment, innovation and the term upon which he ended his speech, social cohesion. On enlargement, I hope that Sweden’s enthusiasm for enlargement will help the European Union to find greater favour with the Swedish people. On the environment, we support Sweden’s initiative to put sustainable development into practice.
Madam President, the President-in-Office of the Council has referred to an issue we consider fundamental and that is the image of Europe held by public opinion in Europe. The barometer of European public opinion, published in recent days in various newspapers, illustrates the schizophrenia we face. The people of Europe, even the British, are asking for more European solutions to problems, yet at the same time they still have very little confidence in European institutions. This is an issue which affects us in the Commission and Parliament, but also the national governments. We see evidence of this in the mad cow problem. The Commission, by which I mean the Santer Commission, fulfilled its role, as did the Prodi Commission. Parliament set up a committee of inquiry in 1997 and, this weekend, we have seen once again, in the case of Austria and Italy, how governments finally recognise the problem when they have no other option. They are still burying their heads in the sand, when what we need are European solutions to European problems.
The next issue which is going to keep the Swedish Presidency busy, and indeed which is going to keep us all busy, from the year 2001, which is just beginning, until the year 2004 – a four-year period in which many elections are to take place, including European elections, is the ‘post-Nice’ scenario. I would like to appeal to the Swedish Presidency. You are admittedly no past masters at negotiating the institutional labyrinth of the Community. You do, however, have recognised experience in the areas of democracy and transparency, and that is what we need at this moment in time. You therefore have a special responsibility. Indeed, I welcome the commitment you expressed to arriving at a clear agreement on such a sensitive issue as access to documents, but we have to go further than that. You went through the five days of the European Council in Nice, and you will have been as exhausted by it as your colleagues. I agree with President Prodi that it is not the Monnet method which is in question here, but the intergovernmental method because, and I would like to point this out to him, and this is an ongoing scandal, our ambassadors are still in the process of concluding negotiations. You said that the Treaty would be signed within a month. We shall have to wait and see what changes are introduced into the Treaty. This is not acceptable. We must see an end to this method.
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Therefore, apart from what you said at the end, there is a positive element in Annex IV in that it does not refer to another Intergovernmental Conference. You mention a Conference of Member States. Moreover, you have said specifically that Parliament has a unique role in taking the initiative, and as we are being innovative here, I am going to accept President Prodi’s proposal, a Commission initiative which I welcome. We have four years to get to work. He proposed a three-phase operation, with the first phase consisting of open deliberations. I would urge the Council to become involved in this first phase, which you have to begin and end at Laeken, during which we have to determine the method we can use to make progress, and consider not just the future of the Union but the future of the enlarged Union because, post-Nice, those countries are already on side and they must learn how we operate, which is no mean feat. Therefore, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would also ask you to put forward initiatives for the Laeken Summit at the end of the year.
Secondly, what method should we adopt? For me and my group the method should be the democratic method employed in all our countries: open debate in Parliament, recorded in full. These days it is available on the Internet. That is a way of adapting and improving the Convention method, nothing more. Naturally, thereafter, the debate should be redistributed through all forms of the media
but civil society should not be placed in opposition to Parliaments, because we live in representative democracies and we have to work out a complex system.
Lastly, Madam President, and this is my final point, I believe that the Conference of Member States must be the last act, when decisions on practical matters are made, and it should not be a tiresome and endless process."@en1
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