Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-18-Speech-3-263"
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"en.20060118.20.3-263"2
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"Mr President, as chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, I wish to express my thanks to the rapporteurs for working through a very important issue at a rather difficult time. The Duff/Voggenhuber report has sparked lively debates, and is as such part of Commissioner Wallström’s Plan D.
What has come out of our deliberations is, then, something very encouraging: the overwhelming majority in this House holds fast to the European constitution. Far from disappearing, the reasons for the new European treaty have become more pressing: greater effectiveness, more transparency, more democracy. All the reforms and advances that the constitution brings with it are urgently needed. The debates in the Netherlands and France have done nothing to consign them to oblivion. I am very glad that the Austrian Presidency is breathing new life into this debate. Over the last few months, we have been in some sense paralysed. What we need for 2006 is a wide-ranging debate in all twenty-five countries, and I can tell the President of the Council and the Vice-President that I hope all twenty-five of them will make their contribution. I have seen the interim report from the December summit; it left a great deal to be desired. In most of the Member States, the debate has not even begun yet, and so it would be quite wrong, now, in January 2006, to present the results of a debate even before we have had one. What we have to do now is spend a year discussing the great issues of European policy with all the stakeholders in all the Member States, and then we will be able, in 2007, to come to conclusions as to which procedure we opt for to bring this project to a successful conclusion. There are various options available to us; my country’s Chancellor has asked why we do not extend the constitution by adding on to it a protocol on the social Europe, and that is a way forward that we should discuss.
This period of reflection will endow us, and European democracy, with new strength. We have every chance of coming out of this crisis in better condition than we were in when it started."@en1
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