Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-21-Speech-3-339"
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"en.20040421.14.3-339"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I actually wish we had been able to have an open debate in this House on optimising the way in which Europe’s Capital of Culture is chosen. Instead, we have to deal with what has to be called some kind of emergency solution or repair job. It has been said, and quite rightly, that it was utterly egoistic of the Council to come to a snap decision to make use of all the present Member States by 2019, in the full knowledge that we would have unification to deal with, in the shape of enlargement. Now that enlargement is imminent and it has dawned on some people that it cannot be right and proper to put these countries off until 2020 or even later, the Commission has now come up with this tandem solution– and a solution it is, although I have to tell you, Commissioner, that it does of course leave a disagreeable aftertaste. I think you are aware of that too. I will readily concede, though, that you have tried to make the best of it, and it really is a great shame that we in this House are in two minds about it and that opinions differ on it, with the result that the proposals Mr Rocard has made in his report on the qualitative improvement of the selection procedure cannot be discussed in isolation from the question of what actually happens if fundamental changes are made.
I am a German MEP. In Germany, 17 cities are seeking to be the Capital of Culture for 2010. We are told that nobody wants to interfere with this. What legal certainty, though, is there for these cities if the procedure cannot be completed? They have applied and are engaged in a contest that I believe can point the way ahead. The only real recommendation I can make for the future is that a competition be held within the Member States, with the Member State making a qualitative decision, which would then be taken up to European level, where I would like to see a competitive selection procedure. I hope that the new Parliament can do some fundamental new thinking about this."@en1
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