Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-14-Speech-3-074"
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, honourable Members, I really think that this has been one of the most interesting debates I have participated in so far at the European Parliament. Above and beyond the various points of view expressed, I have detected a real desire to push forward our European project and I have seen that there is a real interest in rallying together, in uniting: uniting the institutions, and also, because we need their support, uniting the Member States and the citizens of Europe.
The same applies to energy: today, there is consensus that we need a common energy policy, and a common strategy, but we need the resources to develop this common strategy. That is why, as Mr Goebbels, Mrs Frassoni and others have said, it is important to achieve concrete results in terms of energy efficiency and to have programmes for renewable energy, so that we can really translate the objectives from the Green Paper for safe and competitive sustainable energy into practice.
The same applies to research. One of the most important things we learned at the Hampton Court Summit was, amongst other things, that we need to do more at European level in terms of research and development. That is why we put forward the idea of the European Institute of Technology as a flagship project to mobilise our efforts, and I hope that the Member States, who are in agreement on the objectives, will also be able to give us the resources to achieve them.
I therefore think, Mr President, honourable Members, that the European Council needs to reach agreement on the path to go down. We must not simply extend the period of reflection, but move into a commitment period consisting in defining specific results for the near future in order to demonstrate the added value of Europe to our citizens, and at the same time to show them, as Mr Leinen, Mrs Méndez de Vigo and others have said, what it costs us not to have an institutional solution.
We need an institutional solution, and that touches on the issue of enlargement, because the European debate very often sets those who favour enlargement against those who favour deepening. I continue to believe, as Mr Juncker and others have said, that we need both. In fact, enlargement is one of the fundamental reasons for deepening, one of the fundamental reasons that justify institutional reform: an enlarged Europe requires institutional reform as a matter of greater and greater urgency.
The right answer to our current difficulties is not to divide Europe into first division countries and second division ones, but, on the contrary, to try to rally all the Member States together: both those who are already part of the enlarged Europe and those who are going to join us shortly. In this connection, I would also point out that we expect the next European Council to give a clear signal of its commitment to the accession of Romania and Bulgaria on 1 January 2007 if those countries meet all the conditions we have set them, and which they have now been working for months to achieve. I hope that the Council will do that.
Finally, as many of you, including Mr Stubb, have said, we need to keep things in perspective. I know that negative nostalgia is currently in fashion: oh, how wonderful Europe was 10 or 20 years ago. But, honestly, which Europe are we talking about? Was it really better 20 years ago, when large parts of our continent were not free, when much of our continent was divided by regimes that were against freedom and democracy?
We need to unite the three institutions because, let us be quite clear about this, we need all three institutions: Parliament, the Commission and the Council. If the Constitutional Treaty had depended solely on the European Parliament and the Commission, it would already be in place, because the Commission adopted it unanimously and a very large majority of the European Parliament supported it. However, we also need to be able to count on all the Member States, and, at the moment, not all of the Member States are with us. That is why, if we really want to deal with this issue, we need to achieve a blend of ambition and realism. We need to rally together all the Member States.
Was it really better 10 years ago, when the Balkans were the scene of bloody massacres? Are the Balkans not part of our Europe, too? Do we not want to extend the area of freedom and democracy to the Europeans in the Balkans? That is why I do not share the depression or the pessimism: I think that, if you keep things in perspective, you will understand that Europe needs to move forward. It is true that Europe has its problems, and that the issue of the institutions is a considerable difficulty, but we must not wallow in this negativity, scepticism and cynicism that is currently so fashionable. We need to unite around common values, such as, I would emphasise, law. Some of you mentioned Guantánamo, and, indeed, we must say quite clearly that absolutely nothing justifies having, as part of the fight against terrorism, a vacuum in terms of respect for human rights. In such cases, Europe must stand up for its values and its convictions.
So, let us be proud of Europe. Our partners in Latin America ask us: how did you pull it off? We, too, are trying to advance regional integration – how did Europe manage it? When we talk to our partners in Russia, China, India and elsewhere, they show great respect for an enlarged, powerful Europe. Let us be proud of Europe. Let us be proud of our values, and I think that, in showing this confidence and this spirit of togetherness, those of us who truly believe in European values will be in a position to resolve our current difficulties and to make progress with our project for Europe: a competitive, open Europe, but also a Europe founded on the idea of solidarity, a Europe that wants to master globalisation, not suffer it. That is our great project for Europe.
That being the case, as Mr Rasmussen and others have already said, and as Mrs Wallström reminded us, it is not now enough, if we want Europe to make progress, to ask our diplomats to hold a meeting in a beautiful location to find the solution. These days, we need to involve the citizens. Thinking back to the past, I sometimes wonder whether the single market or the single currency, all the progress we have made, could ever have been achieved if we had had a referendum at each stage.
These days, if we want to move Europe forward, we need to do it with our citizens, which, it is true, is why things are much more complicated now. True, it is much more difficult now, and it is going to take time, but it is absolutely essential: if we want Europe to make progress, we must make the effort to get all Europeans involved, and, to do that, we need to unite the European camp. That is why I made this comment in my introductory remarks: we must not add to the traditional Euroscepticism of those who never wanted Europe the Euro-pessimism of those who want to move Europe forwards.
True, the various big European political families may express differing positions, but as soon as we agree on the need to push forward with our European project, we must be able to unite our camp to send a positive, confident message. Those of us in this House today do not simply have the job of providing a commentary: of course, we can, and indeed must, analyse the situation, but the job of a leader, of a political representative, is to inspire confidence and hope. That is why I think it is essential to have a programme that is able to unite the people around real results, and around projects with the aim of consolidating the great European project.
We could point to many of these results, and I am delighted at the energy with which the Austrian Presidency is working to achieve concrete results. Indeed, we must say quite clearly that the Member States, who want aims, who want objectives, also need to give us the resources.
Very often, all the Member States agree, one day, that we need to do more at European level in terms of security and justice. All the Member States tell us we need to do more to combat illegal immigration and to manage legal immigration. All the Member States say we need greater cooperation. But then, when the Commission suggests transferring certain competences regarding justice and the police from the third pillar to the first, I still see no unanimity from the Member States concerning this project and the resources necessary to run it properly."@en1
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