Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-07-21-Speech-3-035"
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"en.20040721.1.3-035"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I must start by contradicting the previous speaker. The Irish Presidency has been a great political Presidency, rather than a technical one; and it has been so in difficult conditions, and at the time of the massacre of 11 March in Madrid.
The first measures you have taken, such as the appointment of the anti-terrorist Coordinator, are steps in the right direction in terms of combating the scourge of terrorism, which affects our public freedoms.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have succeeded in reaching an agreement on the European Constitution. This Parliament is going to give its opinion on that text over the coming weeks and therefore – everybody knows my position on this issue – I do not wish to talk about it in advance, but I congratulate you because it was not easy to reach an agreement and, in the end, that agreement and the Constitution Europe needs are currently on the table. I would also like to congratulate you, Mr President, on the proposal to name Mr Durão Barroso as candidate for the Presidency of the Commission, because that agreement was not easy either. We have a great candidate and, above all, I believe we must make a political effort to put the Commission where it should be: at the centre of the Community method and of the life of the European Union. I hope that this important vote in favour of the candidate proposed to us by the European Council also moves in the direction of restoring relations between the Commission and the European Parliament, which are so important.
I believe, however, that the most important issue during your Presidency has been enlargement. When, a few weeks ago, we celebrated the anniversary of Monnet and Spinelli, my group had the honour of representing you in this debate. I thought that if Monnet and Spinelli had been here, sitting on these benches, they would have thought that the enlargement achieved under the Irish Presidency, ‘the stitching together of the two Europes’, to use the expression of Mr Geremek, was the most important thing we have done over recent years, and that will always be to your credit.
Much has been said here about large countries and small countries; I believe it is a pernicious distinction, which has never existed in European history. Why is a country large or small? Because of its population, the size of its territory, its GDP? No, a country is large or small depending on whether its leaders, its peoples and its citizens have ambition and vision.
You
and Ireland, have been large in Europe during this Presidency."@en1
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