Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-16-Speech-4-033"
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"en.20061116.3.4-033"2
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"Mr President, when Mrs Wallström presented the European Parliament with the White Paper on a European communication policy and I discovered that I was to have the honour of being rapporteur for the report on that White Paper, a journalist friend of mine, who works here in the European Parliament, told me that the best thing I could do was to produce a very short report containing just one paragraph saying ‘Mrs Wallström, the only use this White Paper has is as wrapping paper, because, although it expresses good intentions, it is useless’.
Mrs Prets, Christa, I would ask you please to help me, because I know from Mr Corbett’s speech that your party is going to vote against the application of Article 308. Mr Corbett believes that there is another way to achieve that legal basis. There is not. Or if there is, tell me what it is. Let us negotiate. Let us talk about it. There has been no amendment from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs offering us an alternative. Gérard Onesta, shadow rapporteur for this report, whom I thank for speaking on behalf of the Group of the Greens/Euroopean Free Alliance, has understood that we have this opportunity and has agreed that we should take advantage of it.
You know, Christa, that there was only one vote in the Committee on Culture and Education against this report, which calls for the application of Article 308. Let us try to take advantage of it. This is not an ideological issue. I have praised Mrs Wallström, who is not from my party, because I believe that she is doing the right thing.
I would like to thank Mr Bono, because he has been shadow rapporteur for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament in the Committee on Culture and Education. I know that you would help me if you could. I also know, however, that group discipline sometimes imposes views that are not the right ones.
I would ask you to reflect between now and the vote, so that we can have this report adopted. I would earnestly beg you. This is not an ideological issue. It is a political issue. One of timing. It must be now or it will be extremely difficult in the future.
This is the best way to organise the policy we want. Otherwise, members of the Committee on Culture and Education present here today, we will meet every year and hear a list of good intentions, which, as well as costing a lot of money, will be communicated by us to the Commissioner at the last moment, and we will have no control. We shall have little idea of how the money will be spent or of what use it will be. We will be going round and round in circles.
Mr Bono, Mrs Prets, Mrs Badia I Cutchet, I can see you here, you are members of the Committee on Culture and Education: we discussed the report and approved it in that committee, with just one vote against. Mr Corbett’s amendment did not succeed in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. We have not been provided with any alternative.
Let us respond to the political opportunity we are being offered. I would earnestly beg you.
I replied to my friend, ‘I think you are being unfair. I believe that Mrs Wallström is making an effort to create a good information and communication policy and furthermore, call me naïve, but on several occasions she has shown me that that is her objective. The problem is that the circumstances are not currently right for organising such an information and communication strategy in the European Union.’
Why is that? Because there is currently no legal basis for organising that information and communication strategy and therefore for establishing actions and controlling them properly.
Let us therefore take a further step – and this is the approach I took when drawing up this report – and let us try to change the way things have been until now, because every time we meet to talk about the information and communication strategy, we make a load of general recommendations that come to nothing. Let us try to achieve what we do not yet have. Let us create that legal basis that will enable us to act much more effectively in the future.
On looking into it, I discovered that there was only one formula for creating that legal basis: the application of Article 308 of the Treaty.
When the circumstances in which that Article could be applied were explained to me, I was tempted to say, ‘it is impossible, we are not going to be able to do it’. There need to be three circumstances in place that are very difficult to bring together: firstly, the Commission must ask for it; secondly, Parliament must agree; and thirdly – and the most difficult circumstance to bring about – the Council must approve it unanimously.
I spoke to Mrs Wallström and she told me that the Commission was in agreement. I spoke to all of the shadow rapporteurs, and they told me that Parliament could be in agreement. In the interinstitutional group we had the opportunity to hear the opinion of the Minister who, on that occasion, was representing the Council, and she told us that she was in a position, not to guarantee unanimity in the Council, since that is something she could not do, but at least to say that she believed there could be such unanimity.
All the elements are therefore in place at the moment, but that will be very unlikely to happen again at a later date. In politics, the most important thing is to take advantage of the circumstances in place at a particular time.
We currently have an opportunity that we will probably not have again in the future: a very good opportunity to improve things, to create a legal basis. That does not mean that it will cure all our ills, but it will clearly be a step forward. We have just two possibilities: either to accept it or to reject it. I propose that we accept it."@en1
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