Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-11-Speech-2-123"
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"en.20050111.10.2-123"2
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"Mr President, following the example of our group, the Belgian Socialist delegation will vote in favour of this report, which gives its support to a document that constitutes an important stage on the road to European integration.
Parliament’s decision will be crucial, democratically and politically, to the debates that will be conducted within the framework of the processes of ratification.
Our own decision will be one in favour, even though our ‘yes’ vote will be designed to ring up the curtain, not to ring it down. In other words, it will be a combative ‘yes’, which should signal a beginning and not an end. It will be a decision in the affirmative because, as many of us have pointed out, this Treaty presents significant advances. How, indeed, can there not be delight about the fact that the Constitutional Treaty grants our Parliament new and increased powers, thereby imposing a democratic debate within the only European institution endowed with the legitimacy of universal suffrage? How, too, can there not be agreement to integrating the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the body of the Constitutional Treaty? Our decision will be ‘yes’, but a ‘yes’ designed to start the ball rolling and with a price attached.
When it comes to decisions taken by the Council of Ministers, it will not have escaped the attentive reader that, although the double majority rule has been extended, the unanimity rule has been maintained for a number of crucial decisions, including those relating to the social sphere and to taxation. In the same way, a number of us are alarmed that a Constitution should include, embedded within its wording, a part that is programmatic in nature and with which we cannot all agree.
The document is not perfect. It will be difficult to progress matters in certain social or fiscal areas, but no more difficult than at present. What is important is to become aware of the fact that this Constitution is only a stage in European integration. It is meaningful only if it heralds an ambitious future project in which all European citizens, beginning with the least affluent, can glimpse, and hope for, an improvement in their conditions of life. More than in terms of the Constitution, the EU will be judged in terms of the subsequent actions that it will, or will not, promote and in terms of the strength and political will with which it responds, or does not respond, to Europeans’ hopes of bringing about, or not bringing about, the social Europe, or the Europe of the people. For us, that must remain the priority."@en1
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