Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-040"
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"en.20061213.4.3-040"2
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"Mr President, I would like to point out to the gentleman from UKIP that the constitutional treaty does give every country the right to secede from the EU, but no country has as yet done so, and nor will any – not even the United Kingdom – in view of the fact that there are far more advantages to staying in the European Union than to leaving it. This is not something I would worry about. There is nothing new about this sort of propaganda on the part of Members who make a speech and then walk out. It is not worth talking about.
We all agree on the need for a deeper EU, something that we have been promised ever since Maastricht, when there were twelve Member States as against the present twenty-seven, so it is now past high time that we got it. The same will apply after all future enlargements. One amendment gives the impression that Croatia and South-Eastern Europe could even now be exempted this requirement, but, on the contrary, the EU must be made deeper before any new countries join it.
It must also be made plain that the blame for these problems lies with the EU itself rather than with the candidates – a point that has been made already. Our task is to tell people about the objects and benefits of enlargement, not least for our own countries, and explain to them what these are. All the old Member States benefit to an enormous degree from the arrival of the new ones; since the old export to the new far more than they import from them, this is a ‘win-win’ strategy, although that is not – alas – communicated to the public. That is where we have some catching up to do.
There is another problem I want to mention, and it has to do with the procedure for ratifying new accessions. If individual countries start announcing referendums on the accession of a new Member State, that is going to make matters difficult for us. That is another issue we will have to address.
Overall, though, my congratulations to the twins on finding the right way ahead, which this House should adopt."@en1
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