Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-20-Speech-2-017"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060620.6.2-017"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard a piece of Mr Poettering’s election campaign and an entire speech from Mr Schulz’s election campaign. That is refreshing for this House; and also the idea of turning the Presidency into an electoral campaign is something quite new. However, Mr Schüssel, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, from an artistic point of view your Presidency has been a complete success. There was a Presidential logo – those beautiful ties you are all wearing – and there was music; there were paintings and wonderful dashes of European colour. This aspect of the Presidency really has been very pretty. In sporting terms, too, there have been great successes. You have organised a football tournament in which Austria has not only played, but also won, as I have heard. Congratulations, and I suspect that this really has created more public interest than many a political decision, sad as this may be.
The citizens’ initiative www.oneseat.eu continues. In just over four weeks on this website, more than 600 000 Europeans have signed their names and called for just one seat for Parliament. We also regret that there has been no progress on deregulation. The stipulated joint programming, whereby the institutions say together what should be done, has been blocked by the Council – even though it would be a step towards transparency and responsibility. These so-called concordance tables – another piece of EU jargon - have also been blocked by the Council, even though they would show precisely what is to be expected. They would let people know what was decided in Brussels, and what the national governments add on top – a very important step.
Europe may have become calmer, but hopefully not too calm, because it must be heard so that the citizens can enter into a dialogue with it.
The tone of the Austrian Presidency has been calm. You have always made yourselves available to the European Parliament; warm thanks are therefore in order. Recently some important political sagas have been brought to a conclusion: the Interinstitutional Agreement, for example, or the Services Directive. Last week’s summit, however, was unfortunately barely visible. The informal motto almost seemed to be: we will meet up, and no one will notice.
From this we may conclude that the European Heads of State or Government need a reality check. The EU has already had a pause for thought for one whole year, and now this is just going to continue. Now there is a timetable for the route map and the period of reflection is to be followed by a period of results. It sounds good, but the sad reality is that no one is listening. The game is blithely continuing: when Europe produces a good policy, national governments proudly take the credit; when a bad policy comes along, they say that Brussels decreed it.
The European Heads of State or Government must realise that the Constitutional Treaty – that you, Mr Schüssel, and your colleagues signed in 2004 – cannot enter into force like that. I was therefore glad to hear you say that there was at least a shared view that the substance of the Constitutional Treaty should be retained, but not necessarily the Constitutional Treaty itself in this form. Why then does the Council not just say this openly and clearly, and why does it not direct its ideas and energy into finding out what should be done instead?
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe supports a Constitutional Treaty that clearly specifies the division of powers between EU Member States and the European institutions, and that describes the basic rights and values that bind us together. The sooner the Council deals with this reality, the sooner the dialogue with citizens can really begin.
In this context I would like to emphasise to you, Mr Schüssel, how very happy we are that you got your own way, so that many Council meetings will now be made accessible to the public. Our group has always fought very hard for this, and during Mr Blair’s Presidency we confronted him very clearly with this wish. Once we even greeted him with placards as he entered this Chamber. He wanted to ignore us, but did not succeed.
We welcome it all the more that you have resisted British pressure and that you have enforced the principle that transparency will now prevail - for it is the citizens’ right to see who says what or who decides things in their name. This transparency is an important precondition for trust in the European institutions.
That the Council has not, however, dealt with the European Parliament’s concern – namely the Strasbourg question – this is, to put it bluntly, a disappointment. Using a letter to dismiss this – admittedly very difficult – issue just testifies once again to remoteness from ordinary citizens. It is a clear admission of failure, too, that the two largest groups immediately submit."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples