Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-142"
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"en.20051116.16.3-142"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of Hampton Court, the President of the European Council was present in this House, not the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He is, it is true to say, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom too, but it is in that capacity that he is President of the European Council.
When you discuss the Financial Perspective and, I hope, come to some decisions on it, Mr President-in-Office – and I am also saying this to the Commission – I urge you to remember that you, in the Council, are not taking decisions on your own; the European Parliament is part of the budgetary authority, and it possesses equal rights of codecision, so you need to guarantee that it is fully involved. Just as you do, of course, we represent the citizens of Europe, and if we, together, show goodwill, if we have trust in one another, our problems will not be insoluble.
Tony Blair being here the day before Hampton Court sent the right message. In that, I think he got the order right: Parliament first, and then the Heads of State or Government. I am also very glad that the President of this House was at Hampton Court for the duration. I recommend to you, Mr President-in-Office, that you invite the President of Parliament to Brussels for the whole of the summit. That could then be the beginning of good practice for the future, and the United Kingdom would always be remembered for having fully involved the President of the European Parliament in the European summits.
Your reference to the quality of the Members present today was a masterpiece of British understatement. I think it is marvellous that you use that to express indirect but justified criticism of the fact that there could be more of us here, but it was our quality that you chose to highlight, and that shows what mastery of parliamentary skills is to be found in the UK.
It is at this point that I feel the need to sound a cautionary note. You mentioned the visits by ministers and said that a minister had been to the European institutions on 48 occasions. Tremendous though I think that is, and certain though I am that the number will rise to 60, because we still have six weeks left, it has to be said that, at the end of the day, what is crucial is that the quantity of ministers from the British Presidency should be matched by their quality, and we still harbour the hope that it will be by the end of December this year.
You said that Europe is very distant from its citizens; that is indeed the case, and we will have to give some thought to how we can, together, improve that, but the same can be said of politics at the national level too. It follows that we have to make the same effort at national and at European level if people are to have confidence in the policy-making process.
When considered from an outsider’s point of view – and I am sure this was one of the things Hampton Court achieved – I do think that there is new trust between the parties involved. As Chairman of a Group with MEPs from all 25 Member States and from 45 national parties, I know from experience that, where there is such a problematic interplay of interests – such as is also to be found in the other political groups, in this Parliament as a whole, and in the national governments – problems can be resolved only if there is trust. Where trust is absent, there are no political solutions either. What we expect of the Heads of State or Government is that each and every one of them should play his part in fostering trust in the other members of the European Council.
I have no desire to repeat right now all the things that have been said about the future of Europe, about the Commission’s paper, and about globalisation, but what is crucial is that we should accept what is at the heart of globalisation – the fact that we are one world and becoming more and more so; on the other hand, though, globalisation is not just something for us to endure, but rather something that we can shape, and by that I mean that we can, through political action, keep globalisation’s excesses, and its negative manifestations, under our control. That is what I regard as being our task.
I would now like to say something about the most important decision that has to be taken, about which you have already had a debate, albeit in the margins. I refer, as did the President of this House earlier on, to the Financial Perspective. I hope you will not mind if I advise you – and even if you do, I will advise you anyway – that you should find a solution to the Financial Perspective, for the UK was always in favour of enlargement, thanks to which there are Members from the countries that joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 in this House today, even if it has not always gone down the same road with us where institutional issues are concerned. If you cannot get the Financial Perspective right, that will be disappointment for the formerly Communist countries in particular, who joined us on 1 May 2004. I therefore urge you to do everything possible to get a result. It has to be said, though, that if you and the President of the European Council are to do that, you will need to have the courage to draw a clear line under the issue of the British rebate.
You spoke of fundamental change, and you probably had agricultural policy in mind when you did so, but we also need fundamental change in the contributions made by the individual Member States, and that is where the United Kingdom, during your presidency, can have a major part to play. The agricultural policy has been laid down for the period ending in 2013, but, if a solution is found to the issue of the British rebate, and if we want to have a Financial Perspective, it must be ensured that we can, at some point, give serious thought to the further reform of agricultural policy, with the intention of producing at least a binding declaration of intent."@en1
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