Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-07-21-Speech-3-103"
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"en.20040721.6.3-103"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing an amazing spectacle today. It is like a dream come true.
That is why I appeal to the liberals, who have always fought for this House: you can do Europe a service today by making the Council understand that we will no longer tolerate its behaviour. That is why, after listening to Mr Barroso, after listening to Mr Poettering, after listening to Mr Schulz, after listening to Mr Watson, the Greens will vote no to Mr Barroso.
If Mr Barroso is to be believed, it will be fantastic, we will all be showing solidarity, development will be sustainable, the environment will be respected, Europe will be powerful but prudent, Europe will be for multilateralism, in short, in five years’ time we will all be able to retire because paradise will have been achieved for everyone and the politicians will be able to shut up shop.
Not once did I hear the word ‘problem’. Perhaps Mr Barroso could explain to us why a conservative reformist who is allied with a party on the very far right in Portugal should suddenly become someone of the centre in Europe, both centre left and centre right. What a magical transformation! Which fairy touched him on the way from Dublin to Brussels? Can someone explain it to me so that I can understand what is happening?
Then Mr Barroso tells us he wants to be an honest broker. Personally, I do not trust people who tell me in advance that they are honest. You see, I want a politician who leads; I want a politician who takes initiatives. Going back to Mr Watson’s analogy, I agree there must be a pilot, but is that pilot going to change direction whenever one of his passengers or the control tower asks him to, the control tower being the Council, of course, and the passengers the 732 Members of the European Parliament? I would like to know how that pilot will operate in such conditions.
Another thing, Mr Barroso. You say you want a Europe that is like this or like that. You also say you will not be the tool of the Council; that is duly noted: you do not want to be the tool of the Council. Only the way in which you became President-designate of the Commission was nevertheless a distressing spectacle, you must agree: honest brokers were presented to the Irish Presidency which, hidden behind closed doors I know not where, produced candidates from one side or another, in the end telling us it had found the best: Mr Barroso! If you are the best candidate, why were you not the first? Why did we have to wait weeks and weeks to arrive at this splendid Barroso of such a vintage?
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that if we want to work together we must tell each other a few home truths. You are the third spare wheel. I am not criticising you for it, I am criticising the Council. It is on this matter that I ask this House one thing. If this House ever wants to be respected, it must send the Council a clear and determined ‘no’. The Council has never adopted a proposal from this House as it stood. The Council has torn up half of the Convention’s proposed Constitution, and, masochists that we are, we say well done and thank you. You offer us Barroso! Let us go for Barroso! We are doormats anyway. Well, doormats are not what we want to be!
This is not directed at you; what I am saying is that there is a fundamental problem with democracy in this Europe, that the Council, that the government people of which it is composed – even those of my favourite government, the German Government – are intergovernmental when they are in government. They must be made to understand once and for all that Europe is not just Europe’s Council, it is the Council, the Community institutions and the Commission; they have not understood that. If this House were to make my dreams come true and for once say no to the Council, then the Council would respect it for five years at any rate.
That is what we have to decide."@en1
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