Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-30-Speech-3-052"
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"en.20010530.5.3-052"2
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".
Madam President, honourable Members, the future of Europe is now being forged as the European Union composes itself ahead of its enlargement. We are concerned with the historical task of uniting Europe and welcoming the applicant states back into the European family.
The common website that the Commission is running went live back in early March. It already contains contributions from many heads of state and government and plenty of comments from European citizens. The website will be expanded to encompass all eleven EU languages, and I hope that it will live on in the debate which will continue up to and in parallel with the Intergovernmental Conference. The institutions are also planning a number of common seminars and conferences. In addition, there are all the national initiatives that have been started, both in Member States and in applicant countries.
We are now turning for the first time directly to the citizens of Europe in our preparations for an Intergovernmental Conference. Their hopes and expectations will undoubtedly extend further than the four institutional issues pointed out in Nice. I think this is a good thing. I believe that the debate on the future is primarily about policy, and secondarily about institutions. Before we attempt to define our tools, we must know what the tools are to be used for. At the same time, we must, of course, also conduct the arguments of principle concerning the nature and being of the Union. That is why, as President-in-Office of the Council, I welcome the more long-term visions that we are now beginning to see in the debate.
It may be tempting to simplify the debate by looking too much at the terms themselves and too little at what the terms actually represent. For example, we see many people wanting to draw a clear dividing line between the radical ‘federalists’ and those who have more modest ambitions in respect of the institutional issues. However, each country has its own history and its own reference frameworks that help decide how the terms are viewed in that country. The very term ‘federalism’ is interpreted positively and as decentralisation in some countries, whilst it can be like a red rag to a bull and seen as centralisation in other countries. The same applies to the debate concerning a ‘constitution’. As quite a few people have said, the existing Treaties already form a kind of constitution. They contain provisions concerning the tasks that we are to have, the distribution of responsibility between different institutions and the rules of procedure. What is of interest is what the fundamental rules contain, not what we decide to call them.
Similarly, a contradiction is often painted between those who believe that democratic legitimacy emanates from representatives elected by the populace in their own country and those who believe that it must be sought in a new political model of European cooperation. I believe that we must try to find different ways of strengthening the link between European policy and national policy. Democracy is not a zero sum game. I am convinced that we can do a lot to strengthen European democracy without rebuilding the Union from scratch. When the interaction between the European and the national level develops, then democracy is the winner and the influence of citizens is strengthened.
We must get away from the artificial division between what is European and what is national. Both national and European parliamentarians have a direct mandate from the people. What is to prevent national parliamentarians appearing more regularly in the European Parliament and European parliamentarians more regularly in the national parliaments?
The requirements for grassroots support and the extensive agenda will make special demands of the preparations for the next Intergovernmental Conference, and many people have said that we must find a more open way than previously. Some think that a small group of so-called wise men should table proposals. Such a group can work quickly, but at the same time this would mean that not all the countries could be represented.
Many people, especially here in Parliament, have proposed that we should use an open forum similar to the convention that drew up the Charter of Fundamental Rights last year. However, quite a few countries have stressed that an open forum, a convention, must not restrict or forestall the debate with the citizens. Once an open forum has completed its work, the result must be subject to debate and comments, and grassroots support must be sought for it.
If I may take a moment to speak as a Swedish President and Swedish Foreign Minister and not just as President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to say that I would wish us to be able to set up an open forum early in 2002. Such a forum should be given around a year to complete its work and have the task of submitting recommendations for matters to be included on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference and also of putting forward various suggestions in respect of the responses to, and viewpoints on, these issues.
At the same time, it is important that the broad debate continues and that we also take on board what is happening in the national debates. One way of ensuring this may be to summarise the national debates and to report to the European Council every six months. It will also surely be necessary to have technical investigations carried out, since the matters addressed in Nice are fairly complicated.
In summary, I believe – based on the discussions I have had with Member States and applicant countries – that it will be difficult to find an individual form of preparation that is appropriate to all issues. We need a combination. I believe that we need a convention, that we need technical preparations and that we need to report the national debates.
In the western Balkans, the Union is doing everything to prevent new wars in Europe, a new Srebrenica or further ethnic cleansing. So far, we have been able to help prevent full-scale conflicts in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and in southern Serbia. The EU’s future lies in coordinating foreign policy so that we can prevent armed conflicts.
The Swedish Presidency will continue the discussions with the European Parliament alongside the deliberations in the Council. The resolution that you are adopting today – I would really like to thank Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Seguro – will be a very important contribution to that debate. This will naturally also form an important basis for the presidency when we present a report in Gothenburg. These issues will be given a prominent place there and hopefully contribute new impulses to the continued discussion.
I now look forward to your viewpoints.
The Union is also currently working on developing its cooperation with Africa. An EU troika is visiting West Africa at this moment. The responsibility and future of the EU also encompass a global responsibility.
Cooperation is now being deepened in a number of areas in Europe. Europe must mean more than a market. Full employment, equality and social and economic balance are aims for the EU of the future.
The Union’s ways of working are now being developed with the legislation on public access to documents and with the reform work within the institutions. The future of the EU lies in an open and democratic union.
At the same time, we know that there is a lot left to do in respect of justice and free trade, the fight for human rights and work on environmental issues. The debate on the future is about how we can succeed in these issues of the future and how we can create institutions that make us successful.
Through the Treaty of Nice we prepared the Union for new members joining and, at the same time, made clear our commitment to continued deeper cooperation. We succeeded in moving from unanimity to majority decisions in respect of a further thirty-five or so provisions. However, I myself – and many others like me – had hoped that we would have got further in respect of social matters and the third pillar. We also succeeded in extending the codecision-making procedure to encompass new areas in which the European Parliament, together with the national governments, can ensure that the decision-making process is democratically rooted.
These were important decisions, and we succeeded in getting further than just the three matters that were selected in Amsterdam. At the same time, most people are agreed – and I am convinced that we will have many examples here today – that the next Intergovernmental Conference needs to go significantly further than Nice and that we therefore need this broad debate on the future of Europe.
An important aim must be to make citizens more active participants in the European project. The Swedish Presidency which, together with the coming Belgian Presidency, has been given the task of getting this debate going has taken it very seriously."@en1
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