Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-16-Speech-3-160"
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"en.20051116.16.3-160"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my view, the UK Presidency and Tony Blair are actually victims of the great expectations that the UK Prime Minister raised in his speech to this Parliament on 2 July. Obviously, the greater the expectations, the greater the subsequent disappointment.
Time is running out, results are thin on the ground, and I do not think the UK Presidency should be surprised at the criticism that Parliament is levelling at it in this debate. In fact, rather than an informal Council, this was an insubstantial Council: instead of debating the European social model last month, as it should have done, it found itself holding a discussion about the four corners of the world, without coming to any decision.
I am not going to set fire to myself in public for the Constitution, but I think that the limitation of having six-month presidencies is emerging very clearly. Every presidency in fact inherits the previous presidency’s agenda and adds a new layer of commitments, thus increasing the list of decisions to be made and reducing the chapter of decisions adopted. We continue to add ingredients to the cake, but the cake never leaves the oven.
I should like to mention an example that I put to President Barroso yesterday evening. It is true that Europe has been through other severe crises in the past. I am not nostalgic for the Europe of six, nor do I believe there is a golden age to long for. However, when your girlfriend leaves you when you are 18, life seems very harsh but you know that things will carry on anyway, whereas when a marriage fails at the age of 45, with five children and a mortgage to pay, everything is more complicated. It seems to me that Europe’s situation at this point in time, post-enlargement and pre-Constitution, resembles the second case much more than the first.
I am not frightened of the institutional crisis, the financial perspective or the Lisbon Strategy in themselves, but I am afraid that all these elements together may be extremely damaging to the European Union.
The UK Presidency still has six weeks to bring its work to a close, and I hope it will be able to leave a positive message for tomorrow’s Europe."@en1
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