Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-16-Speech-1-090"

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"en.20060116.15.1-090"2
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". Mr President, this report addresses the fundamental issue of the link between the citizens, between the people – in order not to use a term that is currently creating confusion – and the political project that we are trying to implement, and contains a series of statements of immense significance, all of which are inter-related and all of which are important. Firstly, nationality still falls within the competence of the Member States; there is still a political entity in Europe which is called the ‘State’. This is the case, even if some of us do not like it very much. If we ignore this fact, we will merely be creating utopias. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that, to some extent, nationality also falls within the competence of the European Union. It involves all of us. When a State refuses, illegitimately, to grant citizenship to people who have lived in their territory for many years, it is denying them access to European citizenship. This, in itself, gives us and the European Commission the power, without modifying the Treaties, to assess this issue. The States grant European citizenship: it is therefore something to which we cannot be indifferent. Furthermore, we cannot allow millions of people in Europe to contribute to our welfare and our wealth through their work and their taxes without having any kind of political rights. Resolving this problem in a concrete fashion is a complicated matter. But we cannot allow so many millions of people to be in this situation: contributing, but denied any right to express any opinion about their future. I therefore welcome this report. I believe that it is optimistic and that, in some cases, it goes rather further than the Treaties allow or than some of us would support: for example, the European Parliament and the national Parliaments must have the same degree of legitimacy and I therefore do not believe that, at this point, we can ask that certain people be allowed to vote in the European Parliament elections when they cannot vote in elections to national Parliaments. Both parliaments should have the same legitimacy, and when they evolve, they must do so at the same time. The Commission must publicise the rights that the European citizens currently enjoy much more effectively, for example in the consular field and in many other areas in which they are not even aware of the rights available to them. The Commission can contribute a lot to this debate, providing transparency in relation to what the different Member States do in a field which falls, and for the time being will continue to fall, within their competence."@en1

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