Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-11-17-Speech-3-165"
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"en.20041117.9.3-165"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we often have words of criticism for the Council, when we see that their seats are empty yet again, and if we want to be fair, we have to express our appreciation when those seats are occupied.
Thirdly, the Council and the governments must in future give the President greater discretion when it comes to appointing individual Commissioners and allocating their portfolios. Our expectation of the governments is therefore that they should work together better with the President-designate of the Commission in future.
The hour of decision is now upon us. In the vote, a very large majority of the PPE-DE Group will be expressing its confidence in the Commission. The PPE-DE Group wishes you, Mr Barroso, and all your Commission, every success in the onerous task of working for the well-being of the citizens of the European Union and for the unity of our continent.
When the President-in-Office of the European Council is present, he deserves our appreciation for it. I would ask you, Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, to persuade your successor to follow your example when important debates are held in this House in the future.
It was on 29 June, Mr President of the Commission, that the Heads of State or Government nominated you to your position. The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats strongly welcomed this nomination and still does so from where we stand today, knowing as we do that you possess the capacity and willingness to head up a strong Commission. On 22 July, here in this Chamber, you were elected President of the Commission with 413 votes, representing far more than the absolute majority. It was with a large degree of unanimity that our Group expressed its confidence in you, which it still has today and without reservations. On 27 October, with no certainty of a majority for them, you took the decision not to put your team to the vote. Had a vote taken place, the college of Commissioners would have had the PPE-DE Group’s virtually unanimous endorsement. What it would not have got was support from two of the other groups, which it might have had expectations or prospects of receiving. This being the situation facing you, your decision not to put your Commission to the vote on 27 October was the right one; I might add that it was the one we recommended to you. On 1 November, Mr Buttiglione, whose convictions had been the subject of a surge of emotionalism hitherto unknown in either this House or among the European public, told a press conference in Rome that he was no longer available to serve on the Commission, adding that he wanted to open the way to broad support for the Commission with you, Mr Barroso, as its President. Speaking on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I would like to express our gratitude and appreciation to Mr Buttiglione for this noble gesture.
Mr Buttiglione’s decision opened the gate to more changes. The Italian Government put forward Mr Frattini as its new candidate. It became apparent from the hearings that Mr Frattini is an outstanding personality, competent, persuasive, and astute, with an in-depth knowledge of his brief. Mr Piebalgs, the new candidate from Latvia, gave a convincing and impressive account of himself. Let me also add – quite soberly and calmly – that many of our group would have welcomed it if the Hungarian Government had followed the example of its Latvian counterpart and changed its candidate.
What, now, are the conclusions we should draw from the events of the past few weeks? Let me put forward three of them. Firstly, we must call to mind our European values. Underlying our liberal European society is respect for the dignity of each and every individual person, as well as tolerance, pluralism and the rule of law. Every human being has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. Our European cultural identity derives its strength from our acceptance and toleration of cultural differences. If we abandon that, I am convinced that Europe will collapse, and what that means is that nobody in the European Union, nobody in Europe, nobody in the world, must suffer discrimination, not even on account of his or her religious convictions.
My second conclusion is this. We want a strong Commission and a strong European Parliament. The Commission and the European Parliament are allies in the defence of the community of Europe. At the same time, Parliament exercises parliamentary control over the Commission, and so what we expect of you, Mr Barroso, and of the Commission as a whole, is that you and all the Commission’s members should make yourselves available to Parliament whenever the European Parliament so requires. We propose that we should hold a debate here in this House in December on Parliament’s political priorities for the legislative period leading up to 2009, and from what we say in it you will be able to come to your own conclusions as regards the programme that we expect from you from January onwards."@en1
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