Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-10-Speech-3-024"
Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
---|---|
rdf:type | |
dcterms:Date | |
dcterms:Is Part Of | |
dcterms:Language | |
lpv:document identification number |
"en.20040310.1.3-024"2
|
lpv:hasSubsequent | |
lpv:speaker | |
lpv:spokenAs | |
lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this morning’s preparatory debate gives me the opportunity to make a final contribution on the current and future direction of Europe’s policies. To me, one who has always been a European, it gives the opportunity to bring the point home that Europeans have now had enough of a Europe that is essentially economic and financial, one that all too often, for the sake of the free market and of competitiveness, sacrifices jobs and ignores the day-to-day problems faced by the public; so I join with them, the people, this morning, in recalling the dream of Europe’s founding fathers, the dream of building a Europe of peace, culture, diversity, social security and citizenship in freedom and democracy.
Fifty years on, the Europe in which we live is certainly economically strong – for some – but it has neither heart nor breath of life, believes in nothing and is too full of injustice. We are having what we call a spring summit, we are on the threshold of enlargement, a new Intergovernmental Conference is about to be held, and there is very little in the budget, yet I still want to believe that there is still time to set a new course.
Having been at first a rather euphoric European, and having now become, after fifteen years in the European Parliament, a more realistic, more critical, not to say more uneasy one, I wanted to use my two minutes to shout, ‘Look out! Danger ahead!’ If it took fifty years to build the European Union that we have now, there is no small risk that we will one day see the structure implode for lack of sufficient popular support or of any ambitious vision of society, through failure to give priority to jobs, to respect for national and regional differences, and in the absence of any real solidarity. It is the richest, rather than the poorest, who must pay for the most disadvantaged. A European constitution is not an objective in itself; it is meaningless unless it meets the public’s expectations, and this morning, I have reminded you of what – in my view – their essential expectations are."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples