Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-066"
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"en.20030924.1.3-066"2
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"Mr President, my high opinion of the rapporteurs, Mr Tsatsos and Mr Gil-Robles, does not prevent me from wishing that their evaluation had been perhaps a little less wordy and, to compensate, more incisive. They might have laid greater emphasis on our satisfaction with the draft Constitution for Europe, and at the same time warned the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of the responsibility it will assume if it tries to replace the Convention’s political consensus with a different, governmental consensus. We all share in that responsibility, in that risk, especially those who, in accordance with the will of the citizens, cannot accept an enlarged Europe lacking a common legislature, or one strictly governed by an obsolete Treaty of Nice.
Numerous representatives of the 28 Member States spent 16 months considering all the options in their quest for a reasonable consensus. I do not believe, Mr President, that European diplomats can do any better in little more than two months. In any case, those diplomats were involved at every stage in finding solutions on behalf of their Member States, which makes them partly responsible for the results achieved in the Convention.
In the same way, I do not believe that any amount of political modesty can hide our pride in affirming clearly that, at the end of the European Convention, the highest honours went to the European Parliament.
Nor can any nationalist neuroses make us forget how valuable European unity is for governing Europeans, and, of course, for curbing the supremacy – and very often the stupidity – of other parts of the world. Our unity has thus become an essential tool in the service of peace. No delusions of grandeur or mediocrity can jeopardise the challenging mission which is Europe’s destiny today.
The text submitted to the IGC is a broad and profound compromise. It may rouse the whole gamut of emotions, but it will not be denied its role as the precursor of a new Europe, based on democracy, human rights, equality and European solidarity. That fact alone gives us the mettle to champion it, and to convince the citizens to confer on it the title ‘Constitution for Europe’."@en1
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