Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-05-Speech-3-084"
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"en.20031105.7.3-084"2
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"Mr President, as a former member of the Convention I must say that I am extremely surprised at what is going on in the Intergovernmental Conference. You only need to pick up the note from the Presidency, document 37. What you read is – I find – unbelievable. Just the list of desired amendments to the Convention text is 20 pages long. When I see that, then I cannot help having the impression that some governments clearly did not take the Convention seriously, since what else would explain why these same governments that supported the Convention consensus are now calling for this plethora of amendments? I am sorry to say that only the contentious issues regarding institutional matters are widely reported to the public: the number of Commissioners or the issue of Council majorities. These are, without a doubt, important issues – in this respect we must not, I believe, go back to Nice.
Furthermore I would also like to clearly state that I expect the Intergovernmental Conference to follow the Convention in rejecting any attempts to include a reference to God in the Constitutional Treaty. Article 10 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights fully guarantees everyone’s right to freedom of religion. That is right and proper, but to divide the people of the European Union into religious and irreligious by way of the Constitution – no, that cannot be allowed to happen under any circumstances.
Any retrograde steps regarding the rights of Parliament would also be unacceptable, in particular given the budgetary powers of this House. I believe that those who want to wield the axe here are demonstrating a certain degree of disconnection from a democratic Europe.
In the Convention, I endeavoured to make the EU more social, since a social Europe is what the public rightly expect. It is precisely in this respect that I think that the EU still has a long way to go. I am amazed when important politicians in my country claim that the Convention’s draft is dangerous from a regulatory point of view or when it is announced by those at the Deutsche Bank that the predominance of social objectives in the Convention’s draft threatens the EU’s economic structure.
I ask myself what the Intergovernmental Conference is actually doing in this area. Will it reject such attacks on the draft’s progress? How will the discrepancies between Part III and Part I be dealt with? Politically and legally speaking it is imperative that the provisions on economic and monetary policy of Part III are aligned with the basic provisions of Part I. I guarantee that no one will understand and certainly not approve if there are two economic philosophies in the Constitution text: social market economy, balanced economic growth and full employment on the one hand and an open market economy with free competition and merely a high level of employment on the other hand.
Parliament has to pay considerably more attention to all these issues. In saying this, I am also addressing my comments to my own government. Instead of abstaining on amendments, it should stand up in the Intergovernmental Conference so that the social objectives set down in Part I clearly and unmistakably also apply to Part III of the Constitution Treaty."@en1
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