Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-14-Speech-3-018"
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"en.20010314.1.3-018"2
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"Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in which we currently find ourselves is rather strange: Nice has not yet been ratified, much less come into force and yet we are already debating the ‘follow-up to Nice’. We know what has led us to this point but, politically speaking, it is not a good idea to adopt a Treaty with the next Treaty already in mind; this should never be done and can only be a sign of a series of mistakes, a succession of slip-ups, not to say a whole forest of barely disguised lies.
Now that we have reached this point, however, and that the debate has already begun, we must draw the lessons from the failures in Nice and we in the European Parliament must learn how to do things differently in future, for 2004. Otherwise, we will be in danger of repeating the same mistakes, the same frustrations and the same failures. I wish to say two things that I think are crucial: firstly, we must listen more and talk less. As Members of this Parliament, our duty is not just to speak. Often, however, on these fundamental issues, it is our duty to know how to listen, to listen and to act on the genuine feelings of our citizens and not only on the corporate desires of our institutions. Secondly, we must allow debates to take place at national level and not be afraid of them. The issues that ran aground in Nice are the same issues that had previously floundered in Amsterdam, and many of them have been on hold since Maastricht. These issues concern our citizens and the future of the Nation-States very closely, and I would therefore say that what we need most of all at the moment is not so much a European debate but 15 in-depth national debates. Alternatively, thinking in terms of enlargement, we need 27 genuine in-depth national debates held by the Portuguese with the Portuguese people, by the British with the British people, by the Germans with the German people, by the Czechs with the Czech people, by the Poles with the Polish people etc. on what they want the European Union’s future to be. Only in this way will we be able to achieve, by 2004, a decision-making body that is properly equipped to take the decisions of the future. Otherwise, we will run aground on the same mistakes and embarrassing failures that we saw in Nice."@en1
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