Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-13-Speech-4-069"
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"en.20011213.4.4-069"2
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"In the conclusions of the Commission communication, it is claimed that while the Commission ‘is carrying out a radical reform of its working methods at the political, financial and administrative levels… in the meantime there are growing fears that Europe may lose touch with the immediate concerns of its citizens’.
I believe these are not just fears. The fact that the citizens are not really interested in this radical reform of the Commission’s working methods seems to me to be healthy. It would be worrying if they showed much interest in such matters, which do not arouse enthusiasm even among us Members, seeing that we have not really noticed all this revisionist radical behaviour that is being pointed out to us now. Instead, we, like the citizens, notice that Europe is getting more and more out of touch with people’s concerns and seems more and more distant. Perhaps the introduction of the euro, once the initial difficulties of understanding its value in terms of the old currencies have been overcome, may help more people to see Europe as a common reality, although the feeling is likely to remain, especially among the older generations, that they have been tricked out of their old currency, which will have vanished without anyone having asked them for their views.
The feeling that Europe is distant is a real feeling and one that is becoming more and more widespread among the citizens. At crucial moments in the life of society it does not show itself as such, but emerges as the opinion of this or that government. The opinions are legitimate, but they do not convey the idea that we all belong to a common entity whereas, in the past, this idea had always been symbolically expressed by the Commission. It was the Commission that called the tune with statements and practical proposals. Now, though, partly because it is not the Commission that represents foreign policy, when faced with questions of international politics Europe seems not to exist, and it is not evident in the figure of Mr CFSP. Enlargement itself, the subject of so much praise and emphasis, is, on the contrary, seen by the citizens as a weakening rather than a strengthening of Europe.
If I do not share the enthusiasm about the ‘working methods’ expressed in the communication, it is not because I consider that the topics dealt with or the declared commitments are not going in the right direction, or because there are not enough legislative initiatives. As everyone knows, quality does not depend on numbers. It should be understood, rather, that over-regulating gives a distorted image of Europe and makes people identify it with that bureaucratic Moloch that is so feared by industry and the citizens. No. The intended work programme must be a political document and not an administrative list. It must state the reasons for certain delays and the real obstacles that have prevented certain objectives from being achieved; it must identify some priority goals through which the unification process can be pushed forward. Europe fully developing ‘an effective role in the management and solution of international crises’ will also depend on the Commission’s political will and not just on the possibility of developing on a global scale its function as a proposer of legislation. Rather than in the cultivation of regulation peas, the identity of Europe will express itself in foreign policy and the security and defence policy. The Commission should aim essentially at this if it does not want to be reduced even more in 2002 to a purely bureaucratic and administrative body."@en1
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