Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-020"
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"en.20040331.1.3-020"2
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"Mr President
every man and woman here will welcome the fact that you have been able to resurrect the issue of the Constitution. Although it is not a breakthrough, what you have achieved is a really major step forward. You can rely on our support for every further step in the Constitution-making process.
There are three matters that still particularly concern us: the first is the qualified majority. We are glad that the principle of the double majority seems to have been accepted. However, in the design of this double majority, the crucial objective is not strengthening the blockade minority, not making it easier to hold the European Union back, but strengthening its capacity for decision-making. Please do not accept shoddy compromises in this area.
The second matter is the qualified majority in internal and legal policy. In view of the need to be able to act against the threat of international terrorism
it cannot be the objective again to expand unanimity, but the task must be to introduce majority decisions in the area of internal and legal policy also. This is necessary also – but not only – to make the struggle against terrorism more effective.
Thirdly, you will be aware of our reservations, our worries and our demands where the European Parliament’s budget rules are concerned; I would like to remind you of them, since the result of the Convention, the Convention draft, is itself a compromise, and one that has not found great favour with this House. However, I say to you now that a Constitution tending to reduce the intrinsic right of any Parliament, namely the right to set the budget, cannot be acceptable to us in the European Parliament.
Finally, a particular comment
on the Irish presidency: for what you must do in the next three months, there is no better symbol that the Irish harp. This is because all the peoples of Europe are like the strings of a harp; each country with its own tone, but all needing to be plucked if a tune is to be played.
seize the strings, get your fellow Heads of Government to vibrate and sing! Finish up in June with the tune which all Europeans are expecting, Beethoven's Ode to Joy: ‘
’!"@en1
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"Freude, schöner Götterfunken"1
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