Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-14-Speech-3-030"
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"en.20010314.1.3-030"2
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"Mr President, I particularly welcome the efforts of the Commission President, Romano Prodi, to set the contours of this debate, which follows on from our debates in January and February in this House. Now, it is not the post-Nice debate but the debate on Europe's future. It is vital that European institutions get this opportunity right. It is a rare occasion in history where peoples of Europe can potentially have their own say on what a so-called constitutional framework would look like post-2004. It is now up to Europe's political leadership to set the terms and determine the nature, breadth, substance and intensity of this debate.
At present there is some imagination but little action, given the extensive nature of Annex IV of the Treaty. This morning I looked at the website that the President of the Council mentioned. There is no mention of Parliament participating in the debates on 7 March. It is simply a web page with no facility for citizens to communicate their own views by e-mail. There is only a skeleton programme which is put on this web page under the Belgian Presidency, who will have a business forum. It is deeply unimpressive and needs to be looked at immediately.
So let us look at the future debate. First, its nature. It needs to be politically led rather than bureaucracies being left to run expensive programmes which will look like propaganda in the view of our citizens. Perhaps this would be a subject for Stockholm: stimulating heads of state to start debates. Madam President-in-Office, you have said that this should be something which should be done but in my own country our Prime Minister, Mr Blair, has been curiously silent on this subject.
Secondly, the breadth. This needs to be something which will involve all parts of society, as Mr Bonde has said. You cannot simply preach to the converted as you did in the European School a few days ago. Thirdly, the substance of the debate: that needs to be considered in terms of papers, broad dialogues and other ideas of this kind. Lastly there is the intensity of the debate, which needs to be developed with the best technological means available.
I conclude by saying that in our Parliament we need to network with the national parliaments, the Council needs to give us the lead through the heads of state in each of the Member States and last, the Commission can produce guidelines so that we know what course this debate will follow. We can then discuss this when we come to ratify the Nice Treaty a little later this year."@en1
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