Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-027"
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"en.20060405.4.3-027"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, if we are going to assess the European Council, there are things to be said in its favour, for, the last time it met, it showed evidence of possessing the will to revitalise the European project, and that is something that we note with approval. Before the last meeting of the Council, Mr Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the President of the Party of European Socialists, submitted on its behalf a plan of action for growth and employment that we had drafted together with the socialist ministers of the economy and finance. At the heart of this action plan is the use of state investment and public expenditure as means of stimulating private spending, the very same thing that you spoke of when you said that the available resources of the European Investment Bank would be used to this end. That is a good socialist approach, and, in taking it, you can count on our support.
As regards energy policy – and this is a topic to which I should like to return, since it is at the heart of your report on the European Council – it is indeed the case that we need a single European strategy for it, and the first thing to be noted when we consider one is that the Member States decide their energy policy for themselves. Please allow me to reiterate this point. You have again told how, at the moment that Russia turned the gas tap off, you were at the New Year’s Concert, sitting next to the German Federal Chancellor. Now I do not know whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship at work here, but that is something we can disregard. Perhaps you could do me a favour and say to her, not at the next New Year’s Concert, but the next time you meet her: ‘Angela, do as I do and leave energy policy alone’. As far as nuclear power is concerned, that is the right thing to do, and you will get a lot of support for doing it, not only from people in your own country, but also in Germany.
The crucial issue is about how we apply solidarity to our handling of energy policy. This is something that the Council has to decide, and it cannot follow the example of Buridan’s ass, which stood between two piles of hay and ended up starving to death because it did not know which one it should eat from. It is of that that the European Council reminds me in almost every area, for the problem is always the same. We hear the Council making fine statements about what Europe has to do, and when its members – your fellow Heads of State or Government – go home, they forget the undertakings they gave to Europe and answer only to their national publics. There you see the European crisis in a nutshell; that is what our institutions have to overcome together. The European Parliament is playing its part in this. We have put together a decent services directive – the adoption of which by the Commission was announced yesterday – and I regard one of the highpoints of the last Council meeting as being the Council’s unanimous statement that they would make that, too, one of the planks of their common position. That is a good sign. It shows that Europe – under this House’s leadership – is making headway. It is an unfortunate fact that this cannot be left to the Council and the Commission alone, and so we will carry on biting at your heels.
One final comment, Mr Schüssel: I have to agree that everything looks good around the middle; the Austrian Presidency is doing a good job. Today, again, you made a number of remarks – and you know perfectly well to what I am referring – in which you alluded to certain aspects of what needs to be done over the coming weeks. All in all, you are a smart operator: you assured Mr Berlusconi that you were willing to help him save Europe from Communism, only then to meet with Mr Prodi a couple of hours later. You know how to balance different interests in such a way that it works to your benefit. If we can all make good use of that skill for the good of the European Union, then we will be right behind you."@en1
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