Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-03-Speech-3-034"
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"en.20030903.2.3-034"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, President Giscard d'Estaing, our work in the Convention was not always free of conflicts – and nor, indeed, was the work of the praesidium – but we agreed on our objective, which was to create one single text for a European constitution, and in that we succeeded. We followed the wise counsel of Jean Monnet, who said that writing down what should be is easy, but that what matters is writing down what can be. The Convention did precisely that. What we are putting before the governments is well-considered, balanced, and, above all, achievable if we have the will to do it. Previous Intergovernmental Conferences and EU summits have always made themselves the yardstick for success or the lack of it. That now belongs in the past. The results of the Rome Intergovernmental Conference will be measured against those of the Convention. That, ladies and gentlemen, is our success.
For it is unique, this constitution for twenty-five – and more – states and peoples who, for centuries, have robbed and killed each other, waged war on one another and laid each other waste, and who now want to join together in shaping the future. It is a constitution for twenty-five – and more – peoples, each with their own traditions, tongues and histories, all desirous of retaining their identities, yet uniting in a common destiny. That is the great thing about this draft constitution. That is the great thing about the unification of Europe, to which we must hold fast and with which we must press on. That responsibility is ours. We face the same situation as did the fathers and mothers of Europe’s unification in the 1950s. By joining in a European Community, they were courageous and far-sighted enough to set aside the thousand-year enmity between Germany and France and to make a start on uniting Western Europe. We, as politicians of our generation, have, for the first time in a millennium, the opportunity to unite the whole continent in freedom and peace. We must summon up the same courage and far-sightedness as did the founding fathers of European unity fifty years ago. That, ladies and gentlemen, is our destiny.
We have not managed to achieve everything that we wanted, and not all of what has been achieved can be counted an undoubted success. We would have liked all future laws – including especially those on taxation – to be decided on by qualified majority in the Council. We would have liked the Common Foreign and Security Policy to be another area in which the Member States would reach decisions by qualified majority. We know how fragile some solutions are, the compromise on the size of the Commission and on voting in it being one example. All this is on the outermost boundary of constitutional good sense. We also know, however, that what is described therein is a compromise and not, moreover, one reached on the lowest common denominator. This draft constitution has not become a mere list of compromises, but has remained an internally coherent piece of legislation, and so we must resist all temptations to repackage these compromises.
The governments were represented at the Convention. They had a hand in what was finally agreed on. The desire of some of them to withdraw from this consensus not only fills me with concern, but it is also dangerous. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, that we will not end up with a new and better draft, but with a second Treaty of Nice. That is something we have to prevent.
The Commission’s evident willingness to play along with this leaves me astonished and baffled.
Do you really believe, Mr President of the Commission, that what you have said here has not also been said and discussed in the Convention? Do you believe that the Commission’s delegates did not put these ideas forward when they sat in the praesidium and the Convention? What you and they desire is perhaps the right thing, but you will get the wrong result. What you have put forward will result in nothing more than a return to the old, traditional Intergovernmental Conference, to the same old horse-trading that we saw at Intergovernmental Conferences in the past. Do not imagine that you will gain support for this, Mr President of the Commission, so abandon your game. What the Convention has built up, you are pulling apart.
Finally, once this Intergovernmental Conference is over – and we hope it will be a success – I can only urge and implore Mr Fini and Mr Frattini, whose statements I welcome, to stand by what they said, to ensure that the Intergovernmental Conference makes this draft Europe’s constitution; then, ladies and gentlemen, let us mobilise the people in our Member States. Let us then tell them what is unique about what the Convention has brought forth, a constitution for so many states and peoples, separated from one another for half a century by the division of Europe and by Communist dictatorship, given by this Convention their first opportunity to play their part, through their representatives, in shaping Europe’s future. To our parliamentary counterparts from the East, from Central and Southern Europe, who took part for the first time, I have this to say: not only did you follow the work that was done, but you gave something to the Convention!"@en1
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