Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-30-Speech-3-050"
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"en.20010530.5.3-050"2
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".
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Barnier, it will come as no surprise if I begin my speech by restating our disappointment at the outcome of the Nice Conference, at the options taken and at the timidity of the Conference’s work in Nice. We feel that Nice was just a continuation of Amsterdam and was therefore a wasted opportunity for Europe to take a solid and far-reaching step forwards, in its process of gaining political and social depth. The European Parliament strove to ensure that the Charter of Fundamental Rights was incorporated into the Treaties and the Conference approved the Charter but failed to incorporate it into the Treaties. The European Parliament wanted more subjects to be decided not by unanimity but by qualified majority, because the situation is already difficult with fifteen countries, let alone twenty-seven and the Conference decided on precisely the opposite. The European Parliament wanted the qualified-majority rule for Council decisions to be changed to codecision with this Parliament, and the Conference did not do what we felt was right. Nice had the shortest agenda in the history of the Intergovernmental Conference and yet took the most cautious step of any Treaty reform.
Contrary to what we wanted to see, Nice left an image of a Europe of ‘national self-interest’, instead of a Europe of ‘a community of values’. An image of a Europe in which it seems that every State was looking after itself more than it was looking after Europe. Europe is not about each country looking after its own interests, but about all countries looking after all the others, in homage to the founders of this European project. Yet, the Council was aware of this when it adopted ‘Declaration 23’, saying and acknowledging that it had achieved a very minimal result in Nice. It also acknowledged, to a certain extent, that the method of preparing for this Conference was completely inadequate.
Nevertheless, we feel that one of Nice’s other, positive aspects, was to enable us to make progress on the enlargement process. It is precisely within this triangle and this balance, which my colleague Iñigo Méndez de Vigo was discussing, that the European Parliament is positioned, bearing in mind the results from Nice, which were a disappointment, bearing in mind the opportunity to make progress on enlargement, and bearing in mind the fact that a debate and a new method of preparing and revising the Treaties are being initiated. This new method will enable us to take a more global, more serious, more coherent and, above all, deeper view of Europe. We will not achieve this by saying ‘yes’, as we did in Maastricht, to the Treaty of Nice or by saying, as we did in Amsterdam, ‘yes’ to the Treaty of Amsterdam, and nor will we achieve this by contributing to bringing the enlargement process to a standstill. What we must do, therefore, is engage in positive cooperation, in order to ensure that enlargement does actually take place. To put it in another way, the European Parliament does not wish to be part of the problem, it wishes to be part of the solution.
I therefore state once again that our report does not attach less importance to the assessment of the Treaty of Nice than to the Laeken Council conclusions, but we shall take account of the Gothenburg and Laeken Council conclusions when the European Parliament has to deliver an opinion on convening the next Intergovernmental Conference. Why do I say this? Because we want serious and far-reaching solutions. We therefore propose, firstly, a new method of preparing for a revision of the Treaties. We want a convention. As a matter of fact, there is something I cannot understand: if the intergovernmental method failed in Nice and if the convention was successful in drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which the Council signed, why do we not take the good example of the convention to draft the reform of the Treaties? In fact, I fail to understand why the national parliaments and the European Parliament cannot participate in this convention. I cannot see what the Council is afraid of, because we are not seeking to replace governments, but to participate on an equal footing with governments in the debate and in making positive proposals for the future of the European Union. Secondly, we want a wide-ranging debate, not one limited to the four issues listed in ‘Declaration 23’. The debate must, however, have a human face: we do not simply want a web site. We want committees, to add dynamism to the debate, and Minutes that show proposals which agree on the convention and we want the convention to produce a constitutional proposal that can form the basis of the future reform of the Treaties, which we want to be a convention.
Madam President, I shall conclude by offering my thanks: firstly to my colleague, Iñigo Méndez de Vigo, for his experience, his competence and also for the honesty and rigour with which he worked on this project. Next, I wish to thank all of my colleagues in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and its Chairman, Giorgio Napolitano for the exemplary way in which he led the committee’s work throughout. I am also grateful for the way in which everyone contributed, even though at times extremely varying positions were held, to enabling us to reach a firm and strong position for the European Parliament, with practical proposals. Lastly, I wish to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which made it possible for us to have the amendments and the proposals in all languages in good time. Our aim, Madam President, is to do our bit to ensure that Parliament is contributing to a Europe that is closer to the citizens, a Europe that gives more backing to the Commission and Parliament and less to the Council, a Europe with institutions and bodies that concentrate more on looking after the welfare of all citizens living in this area and not on the national interests of Member States. Reiterating my utmost respect, esteem and admiration for you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I feel sure that you will accept a memento of your attendance at this debate and I wish to say that the political significance of this event gives us great satisfaction. This is a small sticker, which says ‘Yes to the convention!’ I hope that you might take this sticker with you when you present your proposals and when you vote on them with your colleagues and the other members of Union governments.
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"The speaker approached the President-in-Office of the Council and gave her the aforementioned sticker)"1
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