Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-04-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20010704.1.3-012"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, despite the many bright spots in the past few months, dark clouds gathered on the European horizon. Following the Danish ‘no’, the Treaty of Nice was rejected in a referendum in Ireland and it yet again became clear, if clarification were needed, that there is a crisis of identity in the European Union. There is a yawning gap between the individual citizen and the European institutions. It would be to display a supercilious, indeed arrogant, attitude and would therefore be a great mistake simply to ignore this. The fears, concerns and complaints of the ordinary citizen must definitely be taken seriously. His expectations must also be met. That is why there is in fact only one great challenge for the new presidency, namely to reconcile the individual citizen once more with Europe, with the European Union and with the European institutions. To reconcile the citizen once more with Europe, to give the peoples of Europe new belief and confidence in the European Union – that is our task.
For the European Union represents the only future for the peoples, states and nations of our old continent. Only as a Union are we a player on the world stage, a power capable of changing things for the better, whether it is a matter of the conflict in the Middle East, the combating of climate change or the fight against hunger and injustice in the Southern Hemisphere. Let us be honest: on our own we are not capable of doing this; as Europeans, we must instead work together in a single Union, act together and also raise our voice together. In exactly the same way, Europe will only count for anything economically by continuing to work on the internal market and by launching the unified currency on 1 January next year.
In fact, it is for all those reasons that I fail to understand the anti-globalists. Of course I am not talking about a small number of violent demonstrators whom we saw in action in Gothenburg, because they are just hooligans for whom only violence counts. No, I am talking about those who protest indignantly against internationalisation and globalisation. Perhaps not coincidentally a generation born into luxury and prosperity.
Within the European Union, globalisation is not a threat but a benefit. Joint global action enables the Union to do things that previously could not possibly be achieved in a continent traditionally divided by the Iron Curtain and national borders: a community approach to organised crime, for instance, agreements on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, minimum standards to combat poverty and social exclusion. In short, the Union is not a threat but a boon.
Of course, more than fine rhetoric is required to restore the citizen’s confidence. More is needed than a plausible argument to reconcile Europeans with their institutions once more. There must be action on two fronts: on the one hand, a series of very practical decisions enabling visible solutions to be put forward to real problems with which the citizen is confronted daily; and, on the other hand, the mapping out of a wide-ranging vision of the future of Europe. We need a Union that avoids the ills that beset it today, namely lack of efficiency, lack of transparency and, especially, lack of democratic legitimacy."@en1
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