Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-13-Speech-2-037"
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"en.20010213.2.2-037"2
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"Mr President of the Commission, the Eurosceptics have today changed sides and have become the majority in this House, and they paint a bleak picture of everything to do with Nice. They find it difficult to conceal their own failure, which is in direct proportion to the political arrogance that they showed and which they have unfortunately rushed to assume once again, having learnt nothing from their past mistakes.
It is exactly the opposite that an enlarged European Union requires if it is not simply to move from the leftovers from Amsterdam to the leftovers from Nice and then, in 2004, to new frustrations. Europe requires a different strategy, a different idea. The majority must be prepared to understand the reality of the situation without preconceived ideas. Their failure in Nice is quite enough. What is important now is that they understand the test of truth that occurred there: the clash of whimsical abstraction with the reality faced by the people of Europe. There is the question of what direction to take, but there is also the question of pace. Trying to impose a state-led political superstructure when there is no such thing as a single European people or even a single European public can only lead to further disasters. What is required is more centralism and less democracy. Of course the people of Europe will resist. No one wants to give up the democratic essence of their own country, their own language and culture, where they are close to the power that they have elected, that they understand and that they control. Unless we understand this, unless we are prepared to listen more instead of speaking so much, unless we try to open up the way for leadership by the national parliaments and unless we stop discussing Europe in such dramatic terms, casting aside certain obsessions that serve no real purpose, the post-Nice debate will fail, just as the pre-Nice debate failed, and this would be a shame.
It will be a shame if the federalists continue to prefer their ivory tower to the real situation faced by the people of Europe, if they persist in repeating the frustrating experience of Nice and to weaken Europe. The path that has been prepared cannot succeed. What is happening now is not underpinned by any doctrine. We need a completely different strategy for Europe, a strategy in which nations are led by their citizens, not another strategy which sets citizens against nations. Furthermore, what we need more than a European debate is 15 national debates on enlargement and 27 national debates on Europe, free from euphemisms and ambiguity, with the issues laid clearly on the table."@en1
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