Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-07-21-Speech-3-101"
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"en.20040721.6.3-101"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, a lot has already been written about your candidature. A lot has been written and discussed about packages, agreements, whatever. A lot of it was wrong. One thing was especially wrong: the story that you were the European People’s Party candidate was completely wrong. The European People’s Party candidate was called Patten, but he was not adopted.
May I say one thing in conclusion? No one can satisfy all the requirements I have listed here 100% all of the time, that is impossible, especially if he is not a member of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which you are not. One can come close to it, however. We shall be considering how close you have come to it in what you have said.
You are the Council’s candidate and that is how we are examining you. As Members of the European Parliament, we have to ask ourselves what our relationship is to you in this present situation. We see ourselves as a parliamentary group that should be free and unfettered in considering whether you are the right candidate for the office of Commission President and that must look at the terms on which it is to decide whether you are the right candidate or not. We invited you to our group and asked you questions in a very detailed and open discussion. We have heard what you had to say today and I respect you for it. We must nevertheless repeat our questions to you, not all of them, but focussing on the essential aspects of the task that lies ahead of you.
Are you the man who can shape the Commission’s relationship with the other European institutions in the way that we as socialists expect? Are you the strong personality who, as President of the Commission, would fight for the Constitution if it comes into force? In the context of the Constitution, are you the person to say to the 25 Heads of State or Government: ‘This is where the European Commission stands in the interests of European integration; I have to represent its interests and I am not a former member of your club’? Are you the person who will drive integration forwards because it strengthens the Commission’s role as the strong institution in the inter-institutional structure of Europe?
The question we have to ask is: are you the right candidate for what we European Socialists see as the central task, that for which we fought for votes in the elections and which is our contribution to this Parliament, namely the task of preserving social Europe, are you the man to do that as part of his future activity? Can you guarantee that the Commission will strengthen the social model of a social Europe – people for people, one for another, social cohesion, and not everyone against everyone else? Can you guarantee that this model will be strengthened in the Commission, or are we running the risk of getting a Commission President who says: ‘I will use the slipstream of globalisation to bury in Europe the social rights people have fought for and won in the nation states’? As Social Democrats, these are the things we have to weigh up. That is the decisive point for us, we have asked you about it and we have heard interesting answers today.
The question we have to ask is: is the candidate capable of representing the European Union on the international stage in the way we expect? Are you in favour of sustainable development policy? Will you ensure that the European Union pursues a development policy that is geared to sustainability? Are you the man who will canvass in the European Union for a genuine new beginning when a fresh attempt is made after Cancún? Are you the man, as President of the Commission, to work for fair trade in the world on the basis of partnership between equals? Do you advocate an energy policy that conserves resources? Are you the right man to formulate and develop Europe as a values-based model of multilateralist democracy and present it on the international stage as an alternative to a unilateralist model based on stock market values? That is the question we are asking. Are you, for example, the candidate to deal with the USA as an equal when enforcing these demands?
These are the questions we asked you and we are asking them again today. We will take our decision in our group this evening on the basis of your answers to these questions. You have been asked a lot of questions; you have answered many to our satisfaction, but many you have not.
I can announce here and now that we will – as I have described – have a frank discussion of this in the group this evening. I will not be able to tell you the result until tomorrow. I want to make one thing perfectly clear, and it is not directed at you personally: the manner in which you were nominated is not acceptable, and I think this is the last time that a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission will be nominated in that way.
If the Constitution becomes reality, there will be competition for this office, where programmes and persons representing those programmes will be presented to voters in competition with each other. We are working for all that, and that is why we need the Constitution."@en1
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