Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-23-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20050623.4.4-014"2
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".
Thank you, Mr President. Prime Minister, you take the helm of a craft lacking direction, wallowing in heavy seas. You have every opportunity to show leadership. For too long your country has been vulnerable to the caricature sketched 50 years ago by the musical comedy duo Flanders and Swann in their ditty ‘The English are best’, which lambasts the character of other Europeans and insists ‘The English are moral, the English are good, and clever and honest .... but misunderstood’!
Change the rules of the Council of Ministers. The public has a right to know what is being decided in their name and by whom, even if they disagree. That is the nature of democracy.
Second, parliamentary scrutiny. National parliaments do not need a European Constitution to scrutinise the European work of their ministers more closely, but they need to be engaged in a process of monitoring and holding ministers to account. The European Parliament must also be listened to if we reject draft laws for infringing citizens’ rights or exceeding EU competences.
Third, public debate. This debate cannot wait for the need to underwrite a treaty that governments have already signed. Did you go out and meet your trumpet-blowing people in your recent general election? As President Borrell pointed out last week, the rejection of the Constitution was less about the text than the context. Last week
called you
. Show it. The EU will be leaderless for as long as its national leaders play to their public galleries. You will not secure support for supranational solutions if you claim the credit for common successes and blame Brussels for every ill. Stop referring to ‘Europe’ as if it were a thing apart.
Liberals and Democrats will back your presidency and your drive for better regulation. We will help you forge a Financial Services Action Plan to make money move more easily. We will support a single market in services if you protect proper public provision and if you heed our concerns for personal freedom we will tackle terrorism together with the Council.
We also welcome a debate on the structure of a budget inconsistent with the competitiveness and innovation foreseen in Lisbon. Rapid and radical reform of rural spending cannot credibly be contemplated, however, without co-financing the CAP to redress French and British budget imbalances.
Prime Minister, I welcome your speech today. It offers the promise to our continental colleagues of a less perfidious albion. Heed the words of St Francis of Assisi, quoted on a similar occasion by one of your predecessors: bring pardon where there is injury and harmony where there is discord. That is the road to new respect for Britain and the European Union.
Britain has moved on since then – heavens, even England has moved on! Modern, meritocratic Britain has a level of intercultural sensitivity not common to its forebears and your speech today reflects that. But one speech will not suffice to set aside years of suspicion. You need to show that Britain is of Europe, not just with it.
That you will build on the Union’s institutions, not undermine them; that your drive for reform is rooted in creating consensus, not delighting in division; that your protestant work ethic caters for a catholic sense of community.
The phenomenon we call globalisation is re-shaping our world view, as you say. It opens to humankind new opportunities, yet also puts new strains on our societies. The three biggest challenges we face – Third World misery and the migration it generates, climate change, internationally organised crime – all require supranational responses. You are right to direct EU priorities to meeting new global demands, complementing the work of the G8. But we look forward to seeing how you will do all that on 1% of GNI.
You are correct, too, that there is a cognitive dissonance between reality and political debate, that we need to get the politics right and give Europe a compelling narrative. So let me give you three suggestions.
First, Council transparency. Europe can no longer be built on secrecy and spin. If people do not understand what is happening, you cannot reproach them for rejecting it."@en1
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"‘le nouvel homme fort de l’Europe’"1
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