Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-20-Speech-2-051"

PredicateValue (sorted: default)
rdf:type
dcterms:Date
dcterms:Is Part Of
dcterms:Language
lpv:document identification number
"en.20060620.6.2-051"2
lpv:hasSubsequent
lpv:speaker
lpv:spokenAs
lpv:translated text
"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is in better shape now than it was a year ago. However, it is not yet what we want it to be. There is still a long way to go, but it is in a better state than it was a year ago and it has shown itself capable of acting in certain areas. On 26 July we shall hopefully be able to add the foreign policy Financial Perspective to Austria’s achievements. Permit me to take this opportunity to offer sincere thanks in this connection to a pillar of European policy in Brussels, Ambassador Woschnagg. The Financial Perspective has been agreed, but we can see that, even on these kinds of issue, the veto principle leads only to a victory for the lowest common denominator. This reveals the weaknesses of our decision-making structures. I am thankful, Mr Schüssel, that we shall now have more transparency in the Council. We have fought for that. It still does not amount to the democracy and citizen’s rights encapsulated in the Constitution, but we can be thankful for the progress made. You have brought the Constitutional Treaty back on track. We can see new opportunities, and I am more optimistic today than I was six months ago. However, we need to talk about more than the substance. It must be made clear that no one is really bringing Parts I and II of the actual Constitution into question because they represent a balance which no one has so far formulated better. This should be our guiding principle in the debates in the months to come. With regard, in particular, to the internal orientation of the European Union in the light of the Constitutional Treaty, issues relating to Europe’s borders, its absorption capacity and such like have also, under this Presidency, been placed at the centre of the debate. The balance struck between these two aspects – internal structure and external borders – will be important to the future structure of Europe. This is something we need to debate. I hope that the necessary new approaches exist to enable us to advance further in these respects. If we do not make progress in these areas, we will end up with a smaller Europe, and that is something that none of us wants. We do not want Poland and other countries to assume second-class status in Europe. You are meeting the Americans today and tomorrow. Guantánamo is an important issue, but the United States and Europe are not bound by any treaty. Both, however, have treaties with other countries in the world. We need an institutional framework for relations between Europe and America. Perhaps we can set the ball rolling today."@en1
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata

Named graphs describing this resource:

1http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/English.ttl.gz
2http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/Events_and_structure.ttl.gz
3http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/spokenAs.ttl.gz

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph