Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-17-Speech-1-055"
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"en.20011217.3.1-055"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Parliament wanted this Convention, and now we have got it. We share in this success, and have you to thank for it having been possible. The Convention's flaws have been alluded to here several times, but we can and will take care that these blemishes are insignificant and will be forgotten by the time the work is done.
My second remark follows on from what Mr Nassauer said: the Convention puts Parliament, too, in a new position of responsibility. The reform of the institutions is, for the first time, in our hands too. We bear responsibility no longer only for the demands and visions that we develop here, but also for the compromises and results. That is something new and we will have to get used to it.
My third point is that the Convention has been given the broad mandate we wanted it to have. That is an opportunity and a danger in equal measure. The Convention must not turn itself into an expanded Intergovernmental Conference, but likewise it must not reduce itself to the level of being just a forum for discussion. It must work towards broad consensus and must concentrate its attention on those strategic proposals for reform that point the way ahead to future developments and open up the road that leads to them.
Fourthly, the word ‘constitution’ is now to be found for the first time in an official Council document, which is quite something. It is not certain whether a draft constitution will be the final result, but what we can be sure of is that the Convention must direct all its efforts at what we – borrowing the expression of that great European, the German philosopher Immanuel Kant – might call the Convention's categorical imperative, that every one of its proposals must also be capable of becoming a basic component of a European constitution. It is towards that goal that it must work.
Fifthly, Europe is becoming ever more important, yet of decreasing interest to its own citizens. They are, admittedly, not yet opposed to the European Union, but they are no longer so sure why they are meant to be in favour of it. We want Europe's citizens to regain the knowledge of why we are uniting Europe. The European Union must stand for a European model of society and for a European world vision. What we are about is Europe's self-assertion – economic, political and, not least, cultural – and the preservation of a European way of life!
This has acquired an added dimension since 11 September. The EU could be sunk by this new challenge, but it could grow through it – indeed, I am quite sure that it will."@en1
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