Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-07-22-Speech-4-069"
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"en.20040722.4.4-069"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso, on behalf of the non-attached Members who are on the European Right, let me say that I do not reproach you for the revolutionary past that you share with Mr Cohn-Bendit, for his example shows that one can have a revolutionary past of this sort and nonetheless be, today, an outstanding supporter of the system. I will limit myself to considering whether you are the right person, in the right place, at the right moment.
As the European system gives it considerable power to initiate legislation and implement policies, the Commission in Brussels has acquired, by means of the Treaties, the right to govern an ever greater part of the lives of 400 million Europeans, and it is to this development that we object. The problem we have is that of knowing whether you should be a means by which we express that objection.
Your actions as Prime Minister, and hence also as a member of the EU’s Council, have also shown us that, in economic and monetary matters, you have been so convinced a European that you kept very strictly to the Stability Pact and its principles. I might add that you also praised it at a time when Mr Prodi himself – and that is saying something – admitted that it was stupid.
In the answers you gave just now, you were very evasive on the question of whether we should have a position independent of the United States of America, and we well recall the disastrous initiative you took in organising the notorious Azores summit on the eve of the war of aggression against Iraq.
Finally, although you have been very careful and diplomatic in taking the precaution of not saying anything on the subject, you are a forthright advocate of the early commencement of negotiations on the accession of Turkey, which is an honourable country, but not a European one, whether in a geographical, cultural or historical sense.
All this ought to prompt us to vote against you as a candidate. Being aware, though, of what a courteous and highly cultured man you are and of the well-known presumption of innocence, which is applicable even to the worst of criminals – and you are not one of those yet – some of us prefer to abstain. If you want me to go further than that, I will make use of the words of your great poet Fernando Pessoa:"@en1
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