Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-318"
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"en.20061213.33.3-318"2
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".
Mr President, observers will be delighted to hear that the Presidency-in-Office is cutting down the length of the Council conclusions. I understand that the current draft is about 20 pages, at least in French, compared with the normal 60. They may not be so pleased to hear from Mr Poettering that the European People’s Party is meeting tomorrow to prepare the summit. They are so divided over issues like Turkey that, when they prepare the summit, things never get better! In fact, I understand that the Council Secretariat is preparing a letter saying, ‘please, if things don’t get better soon, we may have to ask you to stop helping us!’
I would like to address three issues that are on the agenda for the summit: enlargement, energy and migration. The Council will discuss enlargement and, no doubt, integration capacity. Perhaps they will find an agreement on where Europe ends, but I suspect that Jean Monnet might have been right when, addressing the predecessor to this assembly, the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1955, he spoke of a ‘broader united Europe whose bounds are set only by those who have not yet joined’. As the Chinese would put it rather more prosaically, ‘the people who decide when the bus is full are those on the outside’.
It is important to discuss Turkey and I praise the Commission, and particularly the work of Commissioner Rehn, in taking action and making a firm proposal before there was time for an anarchy of reaction from national capitals; a firm proposal that was supported by the foreign ministers and, I hope, will be taken up by the Council. But let us then recognise that before we talk any more about enlargement, we are going to have to get our own constitutional arrangements sorted out, because the European people will not want us to enlarge further without a clear basis for the further development of our Union. It is not going to do any good to think we can rewrite the Nice Treaty for Croatia. Let us get the Constitution sorted first.
On energy, the great worry of my group, President-in-Office, is that the European Union is in danger of being held hostage. Held hostage to producers, whether they be in Russia or in North Africa or in Central Asia – or perhaps even in Latin America – in the case of biofuels. What we urgently need to do in Europe is to cut consumption by motor vehicles and electrical equipment; cut consumption of heating through better design of buildings; cut the consumption of electronic equipment; and increase production of safe, sustainable energy sources – biomass, as proposed by the Commission, and renewables, perhaps through research by moving to a hydrogen economy or looking into nuclear fusion.
We need to liberalise markets, because one of the reasons we do not have a proper energy policy in Europe is that we do not have a proper liberalisation of the market. I am pleased that even the Social Democrats, meeting in Oporto last week, have finally recognised that competition is going to be important for future development.
On migration, the Commission and the Council are concentrating too much on the security aspects, not enough on the economic or humanitarian aspects. You cannot talk of ‘effective management’ of migration, of ‘reinforcing’ FRONTEX and so on, without recognising the human tragedy unfolding on our southern shores because people know they will find jobs here in Europe. The President said this was a long-term challenge – yes, but for five years the Council has done nothing about it, and we must make progress.
Finally, if the Council does come to discuss the site for Galileo – I understand that Prague, Valetta and Ljubljana all want it – why do they not follow the example of this wonderful institution and have a three-site operation? At least those looking at the site for Galileo would be able to say
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"eppur si muove"1
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