Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-18-Speech-3-030"
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"en.20060118.2.3-030"2
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"President-in-Office, on behalf of the European Democrats in the PPE-DE Group, and as the first British Conservative to speak, I welcome you and wish you well. You take over the Council Presidency at an important time and, in the wake of the opportunities wasted by the British Presidency, you now have the chance to make real progress in a number of key areas.
I sincerely hope that the economic reform agenda will be taken forward with some urgency. It stalled under the last Presidency and I urge you not to be deflected from pursuing the case for reform. I am somewhat concerned about the issue of the Services Directive, on which I believe you are planning some changes, and about your plans to coordinate social security systems. I hope you will not do anything that would damage the prospects of economic progress under such measures. I also ask you not to change the Working Time Directive opt-out which, certainly from a UK perspective, has been fundamental to that country’s economic wellbeing of late.
I warmly welcome your call for a serious discussion on the role of the European Court of Justice. That is an extremely important debate because the Court has seemed in recent years to extend European competences into areas where there was decidedly no European law. It is therefore a timely debate and one which I am very pleased will take place.
You have made a number of comments on the European Constitution. I wish to make it clear that we truly believe it would be sensible for the Constitution not to be resurrected at present. The remarks by the Dutch Foreign Minister cannot be ignored. The citizens of Europe do not want a more centralised State and they do not want a centralised Europe. At Laeken, at the beginning of the Convention process, the leaders stated that they wanted to reconnect the EU and its institutions with the people. The Constitution failed to do that. However, the people do want a Europe that deals with jobs, economic growth, the environment, and cooperation in fighting crime and terrorism. We must break out of the tired debate on institutions and constitutions. Let us focus on those areas in which the EU can add value to people’s quality of life and living standards.
I wish you all good luck."@en1
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