Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-03-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20011003.2.3-025"2
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"The second subject which Mr Michel raised, and which the Heads of State and Government will bring up in Ghent, is preparations for enlargement. The Heads of State and Government will discuss enlargement because it is important to keep up the strongest possible political momentum for this project, whatever technical difficulties we encounter in relation to any particular aspect. In any case, politically we are already living in an enlarged Union. This has been made even clearer from our intensive contacts with the candidate countries since 11 September. In Nice, last December, the Intergovernmental Conference defined the minimum parameters that will enable the Union institutions and bodies to take in new Member States. Moreover, the European Council approved the strategy we had proposed for bringing the accession negotiations to a successful conclusion. These decisions unequivocally confirmed that enlargement is an irreversible process. We now have to implement, on a day-to-day basis, the road map the European Council adopted at Nice, based on the principle of differentiating between candidate states. We have to evaluate the progress made at each accession conference separately, which will in fact also enable those candidate states that are currently less advanced to catch up. In Ghent, the Commission will report on the progress made with the road map, presenting a kind of mid-term review of enlargement strategy, that will allow the Heads of State and Government to determine what kind of approach or impetus is needed for the further negotiations. In mid-November, the Commission will publish the regular reports in which it evaluates the progress of the candidate states towards accession. Let me say a last word on this subject. We know that enlargement is a difficult project, but we also want it to be a very ambitious one. It will succeed only if it enjoys the support of the people of all the countries concerned, by which of course I mean the candidate countries and their citizens, but also the citizens of the present EU Member States. At the instigation of Mr Günther Verheugen, and in liaison with the European Parliament, the Commission has proposed measures for informing the citizens of the present and future Member States and explaining the issues involved, the chances and the opportunities, without, however, concealing the problems or risks of enlargement. To that end we want to mobilise the Commission delegations in the candidate countries and our representatives in the Member States. But everyone must play their part, the institutions and the European elected representatives, as also the national authorities and, more broadly, all the opinion-formers in Europe.
Madam President, let me raise a last point, which will be debated in Ghent, prior to Laeken, and concerns the future of the Union.
The Heads of State and Government will have to extend and confirm the positions defined at the recent foreign ministers' meeting in Genval. Obviously this is the same subject the foreign ministers will or may debate in Luxembourg on 8 October. In Genval, the Commission reported on the situation and called for a new approach in the preparations for the future institutional reforms, taking account of the limitations of the methods applied in the past, for Amsterdam and Nice. For a long time, in fact, the European Parliament and the Commission had shared the interest shown by several Member States in a method inspired by the convention that prepared for the Charter of Fundamental Rights and brought it to a successful conclusion. The Commission obviously hopes the next General Affairs Council will formally mark the support of all the Member States for this formula. Let me just point out here that at a very early stage the Commission highlighted the importance, in view of preparing the future institutional reforms, of involving the various sources of democratic legitimacy that coexist in Europe and of preparing for these reforms as openly and transparently as possible. That is why we would also like to see special attention devoted to establishing a structural link between the activities of the convention and the future Intergovernmental Conference. Another link we would like to see is between the activities of the convention and the more general debate that will continue to be held and in which a growing number of associations, interest groups and citizens is already taking part. This forum on the future of the Union, for which more and more people are perceiving the need, should encourage an exchange of views that very closely reflects the concerns of civil society. I believe the convention must listen carefully to these discussions.
As to the procedures for organising this future convention, several questions still need to be resolved before the Laeken European Council. Let me note here the very thorough work done by your Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs, especially in the report by Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo. This report very carefully and skilfully analyses all the questions at issue. It also discusses something I consider most important, namely how to consolidate and deepen the Union's policies. Like the rapporteurs, I too would conclude by emphasising the need to maintain the link between the institutional architecture and the European projects. It would be rather paradoxical to try to strengthen Europe's institutional structure, to strengthen the Community model, while at the same time weakening the major, or some of the major Community policies or allowing them to ‘unravel’. The four main themes identified in Nice must be tackled. I listened very carefully to Mr Michel's very coherent and, I think, ambitious words on how to consolidate the achievements of 50 years of European integration. That could mean that when the environment itself changes we have to make changes to the course of European integration, although without losing sight of its points of reference or its raison d'être. We will have to keep to a simple and effective decision-making system, but also strong common policies. For the European Union cannot confine itself to producing legislative rules. Through political union, through economic and monetary union, and also through certain major common policies such as the one for which I am responsible, cohesion, European integration must lead towards solidarity between peoples and nations, the stability of the continent, the balanced development of its entire territory and its regions. It is these principles and these common objectives that we must reaffirm at this moment in time when it appears so necessary for Europe to stand united beside our closest allies. When the Heads of State and Government meet in Ghent, they will certainly discuss the future Laeken declaration. So I would like to conclude by emphasising that the Commission attaches great importance to this Laeken declaration, which should in a sense set the tone and determine the spirit in which, as Mr Michel just said, we need to approach all the institutional questions, so as to ensure that our institutions are in a position to achieve our common goals. Moreover, ladies and gentlemen, since we have some time at our disposal before the year 2004, rather more than usual for a change, which is rare, no doubt we can and, I believe, we must spend some of that time reflecting together on what we want to do together, checking that we really do agree among ourselves on what we must and can do together and, of course, integrating this fundamental political reflection process into today's new and grave international context, which emphasises and underpins the necessity, the value and the relevance of the European project."@en1
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