Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-13-Speech-1-067"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2003-01-13"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Regional and local authorities in European integration2
dcterms:Language	"de"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20030113.5.1-067"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2003-01-13-Speech-1-0682
lpv:speaker	lp:Ursula Schleicher2
lpv:spokenAs	member_of_the_bureau; EPP-ED (2002-03-08--2004-07-19)3 member; Conference of Delegation Chairs (2002-02-07--2004-07-19)3 unknown; Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern e.V. (1999-07-20--2004-07-19)3 vice-chair; AFCO (2002-01-21--2004-07-19)3 chair; Delegation to the EU-Armenia, EU-Azerbaijan and EU-Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committees (2002-02-07--2004-07-19)3 substitute; Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy (2002-01-17--2004-07-19)3
lpv:translated text	"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Napolitano for taking on the difficult subject of the role of regional and local bodies in European integration, on which he has shed light in his meticulous and comprehensive report. The many amendments tabled here and in committee testify to the topic's capacity to engage our emotions. Whilst the EU is being enlarged, that process also demands internal integration. People may well move around, but they think of themselves primarily as citizens of their region and of the places where they have their abodes and domiciles, long before they start describing themselves as Italian, English, German, Spanish or even European. This gives these local structures crucial importance when it comes to imparting the tradition of European thought and implementing European legislation in practice and on a day-to-day basis. The fact is, though, that the Member States' constitutional arrangements also differ to an extremely wide degree. Our rapporteur has distinguished himself with the survey he has compiled and included in his working paper on the relationships between the central and local levels in the EU's Member States and in the candidate countries, which reveals that, below the level of a Member State's central government, the regions or federal states possess the most diverse legislative competences. It is not intended that Europe should tamper with this autonomous approach to national structures, which has the deepest of roots in the nation state. Let us not, though, delude ourselves; discussion of this topic brings the Member States, those with centralised constitutions and those constituted on federal lines, with their own conceptions, head to head with each other. This alone explains why so much emotion is called forth by the idea of the regions having an independent right of appeal to the ECJ when their own legislative rights are directly affected. Ladies and gentlemen, it is the European Parliament that, alone, possesses the power to integrate Europe. We, its Members, represent the people for whom ‘home’ means their regions and their communities. If we are now to work on the even greater Europe that we all – for a diversity of reasons – desire, we have to take care to stand on a secure foundation; what we must also give this Europe is a soul – and we must do it with popular consent. Our regions are that foundation, and it is for that reason that we have to treat them with respect rather than passing their concerns through a filter, as Mr Corbett suggested."@en1
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"(Applause)"1

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