Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-15-Speech-3-278"
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"en.20020515.10.3-278"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although we are unable to support the Lamassoure report in the final vote, I too would like to compliment the rapporteur on the extraordinarily high quality of his work. I would like to welcome this report as one of the most significant documents in the debate in this House. It is significant in terms of timetabling and the time chosen to present it, it is significant in that its subject matter is one of the most controversial and at the same time most critical for the future of the Union, and it is significant not only as regards the quality of the final report but also as regards the work and discussions that preceded the report. It is also significant as regards the large number of amendments tabled, including many that fell by the wayside, and for its enormous theoretical richness. Lastly, it is significant because it demonstrates an understanding and organisation of the system emerging from this work on the European Union and also in the light of the parallel discussions taking place in the Convention.
We regret not being able to support this motion in the final vote because we are even in agreement with the first two paragraphs, and we agree that the time has come to update the division of competences between the Union and its Member States on the basis of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, in order to take account of the lessons of the Community's history – particularly those lessons that unfortunately point to so many excesses and infringements of the principle of subsidiarity. And we also agree that a better division of competences is needed and will result in a strengthening of democracy in Europe, which for us includes restoring greater importance to national democracies and the role of national parliaments and a new interparliamentary process for building the Europe of the future.
However, when we get to the third paragraph, we face an irreversible parting of the ways. We believe that at this point the report deviates from its original objective and joins the growing trend towards a European constitution, an EU constitution, which we cannot support. Furthermore, we believe, because we are talking about competences here, that it is not within the competence of any European institution to draw up a European constitution. It is within the competence of the Member States to draw up and revise treaties, and this is a contractual mechanism totally different from the mechanisms relating to constitutions, which are based on the existence of a sovereign people, a people governed by a sovereign body, and that is totally different from our mission in the European Union. We accordingly differ on a matter of principle that we regard as being fundamental.
Furthermore, when Mr Méndez de Vigo spoke just now about powers of assignment, he rather put his finger on the key point: powers of assignment, and the fact that we recognise their existence, does not just mean what Mr Méndez de Vigo was referring to. It also means that the Member States have competences under their own common law, and no one needs to assign them as long as the European Union only has such competences to the extent that the Member States delegate and assign them and may also withdraw them, as in the case of the new type of mechanism that would replace the existing Article 308 according to this report. This is a very important point with consequences for the institutional framework and for how we see the competences of the European Union.
There are a few more observations that we would like to make. For example, the criterion of synergy is mentioned amongst the criteria identified in Recital G, but this criterion can only be considered within a very limited framework. The criterion of synergy and of effectiveness is, in itself, extremely dangerous, because that is how all the attacks on the principle of subsidiarity are made. In isolation, it is easy to maintain that any given action would lead to greater effectiveness – and effectiveness is a dangerous word in itself because it can be used for anything – and to economies of scale, which would provide a platform for constant infringements of the principle of subsidiarity.
By way of conclusion, let me say that we welcome the report and would like to support it, but it is on the issue of this constitutional vision that we differ with the rapporteur, this vision of a European Union becoming ever more like a state, which we consider to be fundamentally at odds with the whole concept of Europe and with our vision of the future of the European Union – one which respects the individual nations."@en1
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