Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-26-Speech-3-107"
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"en.20030326.6.3-107"2
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"Mr President, I never thought I would be driven to make the speech you are about to hear. You and I are but two of the many who suffered long years of dictatorship. We all wholeheartedly supported the idea of the reunification of Europe and the creation of a democratic Europe once the countries in the other half of the continent achieved democracy.
In this regard, we were well pleased with the outcome of the Brussels and Copenhagen Summits. The results might not have been remarkable, but the conclusions were acceptable and took account of the balance between the institutions. Then the text of this draft Treaty suddenly appeared. I should emphasise that the Treaty has not yet been signed and therefore everything is still open to amendment. This includes the deletion of Annex XV we have heard so much about. The reason is that it contains fixed budget items, together with guidelines on agricultural spending. In other words, it amounts to suspending the European Parliament’s rights up to 2007 in some cases and up to 2013 in others. This is inconceivable. We seem to have fallen down a black hole and be back in 1970. I find it quite intolerable.
The book entitled
by Carlo M. Cipolla comes to mind. It deals with the basic laws of human stupidity
I should make it clear this is not intended as a personal reference to our friend on the Council. A stupid person is defined as someone who causes damage to another person or a group of people without any advantage accruing to himself or herself, or even with some resultant self-damage. That is exactly what happened here. A text was introduced in an attempt to harm Parliament. The result was to damage the enlargement process and introduce unexpected hurdles when we all believed a solution was within our grasp. An unprecedented dispute then arose because precedents were ignored. There is no Annex XV in the Treaty for the previous enlargement involving Sweden, Finland and Austria. It is a new invention and that is really why the difficulty emerged.
Ladies and gentlemen, as other honourable Members have made clear, Parliament is committed to enlargement on 1 May 2004. We are not in any way committed to a celebration on 16 April in the shadow of the Acropolis, however, though we would like to be part of it. We hope to be there, but we cannot accept the creation of different classes of Member States. We cannot accept restrictions on the competence of the European Parliament either. We would therefore like to make it quite clear that we are concerned about competence, not about money. Ladies and gentlemen, we will not sell Parliament’s birthright for a mess of pottage."@en1
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"Allegro ma non troppo"1
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