Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-22-Speech-3-042"
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"en.20050622.13.3-042"2
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"Madam President, the fiasco of the recent EU summit has left the European Union at a crossroads. No one should rejoice at this crisis, however, regardless of the reasons behind it. The Polish delegation to the Union for Europe of the Nations Group may well be opposed to the Constitutional Treaty, but this does not mean that we are opposed to the European Union itself. The latter is something we should all value. No one should make rash judgments either. One cannot help thinking, however, that even though the old Member States have quarrelled for years over whether priority should be given to structural reforms and more effective measures or to regulations that enhance social solidarity, the EU now appears to be saying that it has no interest in either efficiency or solidarity.
Yet no one can claim that the recent EU enlargement is the cause of the crisis. No one should lay the blame on the new Member States, or on the 150 Polish plumbers working in France, who are in any case unable to meet the current demand for plumbing services in that country. The problems we are experiencing with regard to the new Financial Perspective do not boil down to a simple dispute over money. There is no longer any point in holding debates on the EU’s future on the basis of such obsolete ideological concepts as ‘liberalism’ or ‘social model’, because jobs cannot be created without growth. On the whole, the EU’s economies are over-regulated, and in addition, unemployment is not falling. Unless we want to escalate the crisis further, we must develop a job-creation strategy based on more effective action, enhanced competitiveness and higher incomes.
There is another dimension to this crisis, namely the failure of the Constitutional Treaty. If its architects were keen to hear what the EU’s citizens had to say, then they have achieved their goal. The only problem is that the EU’s citizens have voiced their national opposition to a federal EU. The European project therefore needs to be thoroughly reconsidered, and the reforms must start from grass-roots level. Attempts by an all-seeing elite to bestow happiness on people by force always prove counter-productive.
My final point relates to the common foreign policy, with regard to which people quite obviously have varying and divergent priorities. I say this in view of Mr Juncker’s comments on improvements in the EU’s relations with Russia. I would ask whether it is not the case that relations have improved because the EU has turned a blind eye to Russia’s impertinent treatment of Poland and the other new Member States. Unless the common foreign policy is to be devoid of any practical sense, it should seek to achieve a minimum level of security for all Member States, rather than to promote the interests of individual countries."@en1
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