Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-11-Speech-2-043"
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"en.20050111.5.2-043"2
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"Mr President, a blank cheque is a cheque on which the recipient writes the amount concerned. A cheque of this kind can be issued in an emergency, if the signatory knows the recipient very well. Why, however, recommend to the electorate that it endorse an agreement that is to be given substance by leaders we cannot possibly know at present? We do not know whether the most important and most sensitive issues are to be decided unanimously or by qualified majority voting. The future unelected prime ministers will themselves be able to determine how they will make decisions, instead of giving the electorate the last word. Nor do we know the content of important articles in which decisions are left to the Court of Justice. In one place, a pledge is given on matters relating to countries’ social systems; elsewhere, our welfare systems can be voted away on the basis of a majority decision or a judgment. In one place, the status of the national church is maintained; elsewhere, the precedence taken by the Danish Constitution in matters relating to the national church is removed. In one place, national identity is guaranteed; elsewhere, the Constitution has to give way if it is in conflict with a decision by officials in Brussels. In Article III-375, the Danish Supreme Court loses the right to decide the limits placed upon the EU authorities. In many places, there is freedom of choice as to whether a binding decision or voluntary coordination is to be used. Thus, we do not know what we are supposed to endorse. It is therefore wisest not to endorse anything until the amount is stated on the cheque, together with the identity of the recipient, and until we are also given the right to cancel the cheque. In that way, we shall at least know what we are voting on and how we can overturn a decision.
Constitutions are for states. Between states, agreements are made, that is to say treaties. I want to see a Europe of democracies that solves practical problems by focusing upon cross-border issues, or matters that we cannot solve ourselves. In that way, we should not be losing anything in terms of democracy, but should have everything to gain in terms of cooperation. We should then have a democratic bonus instead of a growing democratic deficit that might end up with the collapse of democracy. As the well-known poet Ebbe Kløverdal Reich pointed out, democracy without a
is simply the exercise of power. Government that provides no opportunity for adjusting a country’s course at the date of the next election is not democracy, but oligarchy. Europe deserves better, and that is the title of the alternative statement that I recommend be adopted instead of Mr Corbett’s and Mr Méndez De Vigo’s report."@en1
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