Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-04-Speech-3-055"
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"en.20010704.1.3-055"2
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"Mr President, first and foremost I should like to thank the various speakers and especially the group chairmen. I should also like to thank the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, for his words. I should like to make a total of four marginal comments on the various declarations.
First and foremost, I should like to comment on the outcome of the Irish referendum and on the suggestions that the Irish referendum be seized upon to argue that, in fact, we need less of a European input. That should, apparently, be the result of this Irish referendum, at least if we were to take it into account.
Well, I find that a reductionist view. There is certainly a democratic deficit in Europe, but you do not solve that deficit by having less of a European input, but by creating more democracy in Europe.
I believe that such an attitude is certainly not an arrogant one. I have always, including at the meeting of the Council in Gothenburg, argued that we must not adopt an arrogant attitude to Irish voters by saying ‘there is no problem, we shall not bother about the referendum and will simply continue as if there is nothing wrong’. No, we must take that ‘no’ vote seriously and take it on board in our reflections. The problem must be tackled. However, it is an unacceptable solution to draw the conclusion from the Irish ‘no’ vote that we must simply again take the European Union into reverse.
My second marginal comment concerns the convention. I agree with the various speakers that the governments must also be represented there at a high level, because it would be a mistake to exclude the governments and only to have them represented at a low level, resulting in a possible incompatibility between the outcome of the convention and that of the intergovernmental conference which, in the normal course of things, will be organised in 2004. In addition, I believe that we must ensure that the constitutional regions are involved in the whole process."@en1
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