Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-158"
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"en.20040915.7.3-158"2
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".
Thank you Mr President. I should also like to thank Mr Leinen for enabling us to hold this debate on a very important issue. We are, in fact, convinced that the European Constitution will help us to build a Europe that is democratic, more transparent, more efficient and placed at the service of Europeans.
Mr Leinen, there is therefore a wide range of tools being put in place. I should therefore like to say that the Commission is not in favour of launching an overall, wide-ranging, pan-European campaign on the Constitution. That would be potentially counterproductive, because such an initiative might be perceived as a supranational propaganda exercise. Let us not forget, as I said earlier, that ratifying a Treaty is a constitutional process and that in each Member State, therefore, there is a need to sense what is appropriate and to determine the ways in which the Commission is to intervene by means of European public funds. All of this requires a tailor-made approach, hence the need for dialogue between our three institutions: Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Next, turning to Mr Nikolai, I should like to thank him and the Dutch Presidency for arranging the informal meeting of competent ministers, taking place on 5 October, precisely to look into how this major information campaign can be organised. Mr Leinen, I am certain, as you are, that factual and objective information will be able to dispel a lot of the misunderstandings. Consequently, following the meeting on 5 October, we must be in a position to envisage what can be done in each of the Member States. It is on that basis that the Commission will support the efforts undertaken to this end.
I also clearly noticed your concern, which I share, that this informal meeting should able to specify timetables and to see who is in the best position to address each national situation. All of this will, of course, demonstrate clearly what might be the best use of budgetary investment earmarked for these actions.
This is my answer on the Commission’s behalf. We want to set up a programme and an information plan following up this meeting organised by the Dutch Presidency with the specific aim of adopting a practical, concerted approach and of setting up realistic action programmes that cater to our countries’ specific needs. Please allow me, Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, to thank Parliament for having, by organising this debate, already stressed the importance of this information which, once again, we want to be objective but which, above all, we want to be as complete as possible and as accessible as possible to the greatest number of people.
It is true, however, that, to make this institutional construction succeed, we need the combined consent and participation of the public. The Commission therefore deems it essential that this Constitutional Treaty should be extensively presented and explained to the public. Let me say at this point that I am answering on behalf of my colleague Mr Vitorino, who asked me to convey his apologies, but I should like to make it clear that, alongside Mr Vitorino, I have followed recent Council debates on the draft Constitution, on behalf of my colleague Mr Barnier.
I shall therefore respond briefly, Mr President, in accordance with your wishes, whilst trying to be as accurate as possible. I should first like nonetheless to point out, Mr Nikolai – and I shall just greet Mr Leinen as he goes by – the important share of responsibility that falls to national governments that are signatories of the Treaty. I feel that each government is best placed to develop the most suitable approach on a country-by-country basis, depending on the particular sensitivities, and the political and social context peculiar to the country concerned.
That being the case, we in the Commission naturally intend to offer our complete support to this effort, and it is against this backdrop that, from as early as July, Mr Prodi, the President of Parliament and the Chairman of the Committee of the Regions, along with Mr Vidal-Quadras and Mr Vitorino, have been appealing to all European, national, regional and local parliamentarians to contribute to this debate. It is also in this context that we launched the campaign entitled ‘A thousand debates for Europe’. This is a target that we should like to reach and even exceed. May I call on each of you to promote these debates and contribute to them? I naturally call on the Members of the Commission to do likewise.
I should also like to announce what has been done within the scope of the PRINCE actions, the European citizens’ information programme. Here, too, the Commission, in conjunction with Parliament, has endeavoured to make it easier to produce explanatory notes to present and explain the text adopted and the process that was followed in order to prepare it.
With the 2004 credits, we have begun updating brochures for the general public and multilingual guides to the Constitution. More than ten million copies of these brochures and guides will be published. I believe we will therefore have a volume of information never previously achieved.
We have made arrangements to have a video produced, which will be distributed from 29 October, together with information panels intended for all our intermediaries and networks, as well as for the national and regional public services that will be using them.
Next, the Commission has endeavoured to arrange seminars for journalists: we hope to reach at least five hundred journalists, who will come to Brussels to familiarise themselves with the Constitution and talk with forums comprising MEPs attending the Convention and representatives of civil society.
Lastly, Parliament and the Commission, along with the Council, may decide to hold another version of the ‘Springtime of Europe’ initiative, which had reached numerous young people; schools are asked to arrange information meetings on their premises."@en1
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