Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-078"
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"en.20060315.3.3-078"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I promise that I shall keep this as brief as possible. Many important and interesting things have been said on this subject, and I can assure Mr Poettering and Mrs Berger that the Federal Chancellor, even though he is absent, is following very closely what your House has to say. It goes without saying that what you have to say will have an important part to play in the preparations. I would like to tell Mrs Berger that my being here today must not be taken as an indication of any lack of ambition; on the contrary, the Austrian Presidency has the ambition of joining with the Commission in achieving great things for the benefit of Europe’s citizens.
It might very well be, Mr Kirkhope, that the Council does not operate on high octane, unlike the President of the Commission. Maybe we operate more on biofuel, in accordance with the spirit of our time.
Several speakers mentioned, in this context, the Commission’s ‘better lawmaking’ initiative, and for this I would like to thank in particular Commissioner Verheugen, who is here with us today, and encourage him to press on with this initiative, for it is the sort of initiative that the public understand and that brings the European Union closer to them once more.
Mr Rasmussen and others mentioned the issue of ‘flexicurity’, and I can confirm and emphasise that we are concerned here with flexibility through security as an overarching paradigm for reforms in the fields of labour law and social policy. It goes without saying that the intention here is to achieve a balanced relationship between flexibility and security on the European labour markets.
Mr Titley, I agree with you that action is needed, because this will convince our citizens. We, together with the Commission, are determined to take the right steps towards taking this action.
I can also tell Mr Schulz that we are of course well aware of the need to deploy the necessary financial resources. We are not talking here only about European resources, but also about national resources, and their quality and efficiency are what matter; for we should not always consider only the quantity of resources, but should also take care that the right resources are deployed in the right place.
Mr Watson, I certainly agree with you that there are many subjects which the European Council ought to deal with, but with limited time not everything can be dealt with.
As to your reference to Metternich, I assure you that Metternich is not a role model for us. His way of seeing Europe is not the way we see Europe. We do not want a directory of five big countries that rule the rest. Let us recall that he was the head of a police state, which we do not want either.
What I would like to tell Mrs Harms is that sustainability does of course play a major role in the European Union, and I can remind the House that the sustainability strategy is to be revised before mid-2006. I can assure you that sustainability will also, of course, play a large part in everything that the Council and the Commission endeavour to do.
I also have something to say to Mr Bonde. I would like to firmly repudiate the idea that those states that wish to exercise their sovereign rights by pressing on with the process of ratifying the constitutional treaty are acting illegally.
I would refer you to the decision of the June European Council, which, in ordering the period of reflection, also stated explicitly that the validity of continuing with the ratification process is not to be called into question.
I believe that the Council is going full steam ahead in order to achieve the goals we have set ourselves."@en1
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