Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-16-Speech-2-014"
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"en.20060516.4.2-014"2
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".
Mr President, Europe is undergoing a serious crisis, probably the most serious in its history. We see it every day – Europe is not moving forward, or even standing still, but going backwards, and at the same time national egos are growing and the feeling of sharing a common destiny is in retreat.
Mrs Wallström, the Commission's role is not just to make observations, but to present proposals. It was incumbent on the Commission to define a path, and to defend and carry a vision, and you have failed in that.
We must stop lying to ourselves. Even though the ratification process is continuing symbolically, we all know that this Constitution will never see the light of day. We need to rewrite the Constitution, to produce a new text that is shorter, simpler, more readable and more tightly focused on the major principles on which the European Union is founded.
This text should say who we are, what we want and what values we espouse and defend. If we want to be in a position to ratify a political project of that nature in 2009, when European elections will be held in all the Member States, we must start preparing for it right now.
Those, Commissioner, are the regrets of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
Last week, Mr Barroso quite rightly called on the Heads of State or Government to take responsibility for the European project before their citizens. Today, we call on the Commission to revive the inspiration without which nothing much can ever be achieved.
Ahead of the next European Council, you have put forward a number of proposals in an attempt to respond to this crisis. Our group has taken note of a few timid steps forward among those proposals.
For example, you are going to send all of your legislative proposals directly to the national parliaments at the same time as you send them to the European Parliament; that is good, but it does not change anything.
You are going to propose to the Member States a reform of the decision-making process in the field of judicial and police cooperation. That is better, but did it really need to take a year to come up with it? Do you really think that these proposals are going to recreate a climate of trust between the citizens and Europe?
Your revival plan, be it in the field of policy or of the institutions, is not up to the challenges with which we are faced. You seem to be happy with taking very small steps, but what we need is a giant leap forward.
First of all, your Europe of results is singularly lacking in ambition when it comes to policy. I should have liked to have heard you advocating new common policies, which are vital in order to prepare better for the future. This is particularly true when it comes to research, where we are losing ground all the time, to the United States and Japan today, and to China and India tomorrow. It is also true with regard to energy: it is clear that the issue of energy and energy supplies will be one of the major challenges of this century.
The issue of immigration is also relevant. We need a common policy in this field, because it is clear that issues of migration and co-development need to be dealt with at European level.
Moreover, we should have like to have heard some proposals on the issue of economic governance. If we want to generate growth, and therefore employment, we obviously need to strengthen our economic, budgetary and industrial coordination, at least within the Eurozone. This really is a matter of urgency.
The lack of proposals from you regarding the institutions is, in my opinion, even more serious. With regard to the basic issue of the future of our institutions, and therefore of our democracy, you contented yourself with commenting that there is currently no consensus between the Member States."@en1
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