Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-162"
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"en.20040915.7.3-162"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I am extremely surprised at your position on this issue. During the debates of the coming months on the ratification of a European Constitution, who else should act as an advocate of this Constitution, and as a guardian of the broad consensus achieved in the European Convention and of the concept of European integration, if not the European institutions, and if not this House? Yet the institutions present a curious sight, which reminds me of children who lose their ball while playing, and who watch spellbound as the ball bounces onto the road and under the wheels of cars to see if the ball will somehow appear again undamaged on the other side of the road.
We cannot allow this Constitution to become a pawn in what are purely national and nationalist debates, and we cannot leave it to the mercy of domestic political grudges and calculations. I would have expected the Commission to ensure that this does not happen.
What action is the Commission taking? There is no longer even a portfolio for the Constitution in the incoming Commission, or a Commissioner responsible for it. There were two Commissioners responsible for the Constitution in the outgoing Commission, yet there is no longer even one at this decisive stage of the debate on it. What action is the Commission taking? It is quartering the budgetary appropriations for communication and for campaigns to inform the public about the European Constitution. If you wish to relinquish your responsibility for the Constitution, and if you wish to be an engine of European integration and the Treaties, but not an advocate of the development of European integration, you should continue on your current course of action.
You have an extremely important historical decision to take; do you wish, together with this House and the Council, to prevent the Constitution becoming a pawn to nationalism, renationalisation in Europe and chauvinism? Take a look at your own country, where members of the Convention have now come out in opposition to the Constitution. Has it not become clear to you that a great deal of courage is required to defend together this common project for a common future?"@en1
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