Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-10-Speech-3-028"
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"en.20040310.1.3-028"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what do our fellow-citizens say to us when we go out among them to talk to them about Europe? What do they ask us about? Most of all, they ask us about the role of the European Union. What does it do? How is it run and by whom? What they ask of us is clarity in decision-making, precision and comprehensibility in the division of its competences. Seeking closer identification with the European Union and with its actors, they would also like Europe to be closer to them and to care more about their future.
The Convention has done even more than to outline the face of the new Europe; by specifying its competences and putting faces to decisions, it has fashioned the European Union’s body. It has created essential linkages that will enable our political design to progress. I believe it needs to be said, and repeated, that the draft constitution produced by the Convention under the former French President, Mr Giscard d'Estaing, is a good one. What makes it the best of compromises is the fact that, rather than aiming to combine national institutions, it proposes a wholly new structure, one that makes for greater effectiveness and clarity and is in line with modern thinking.
I find it regrettable that last December saw a triumph for introversion, for individual interests, for the self-centredness of the nation states. What place is there for the European public in this masquerade? Above all, as this House had said, the Intergovernmental Conference is a thing of the past. The Convention, a novel form of institution, was a gamble that paid off, even demonstrating that the intergovernmental method is no longer suited to the modern-day needs of the EU. The way the IGC works reflects a former ambition that left no room for the real European designs, the one that gives us a glimpse of the future.
The EU is changing its nature before our very eyes. The debates between those, on the one hand, who favour an intergovernmental approach, and on the other, the proponents of federalism, bear no relation to the realities of the EU. The draft constitution embodies realism and modernity precisely because it bridges the divisions of the past that prevent us, today, from driving the European project forward. It gives Europe’s citizens more power. Let me conclude by saying that our House will respond to this blockage by standing firm, by seeing to it that we get a modern constitution, one that enables Europe to act, that makes it visible and gives it credibility. I wish the Irish presidency every success."@en1
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