Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-17-Speech-3-015"
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"en.20070117.3.3-015"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office’s speech was an encouraging one, and I am grateful to her for everything in it that had that effect, for it is the spirit of that speech that Europe needs, and it is that that will enable us, under the German Presidency of the Council, to make headway. With that end in mind, you will find the Socialist Group in this House right alongside you.
We need to use less energy and to use it more efficiently, and that, let me add, means that we also need technology – you got that right – and the faithful observance of contracts.
You are at the head of a government that has abandoned nuclear power. It is a good thing that you have done that, and you have a chance to win others in Europe over to your government’s line, which would be even better.
If, however, you want to use the Council Presidency to gain an advantage on the domestic political front and to go back to nuclear power – which is what you wanted to do as leader of the CDU – then I have to tell you that what coalition agreements have in common with contracts for the supply of gas is that those who do not keep to them lose credibility.
You also said what needed to be said about Africa and international policy. I am grateful to you for the Council Presidency’s commitment to peacemaking in the Middle East and around the world, and, above all to fair sharing as a means of securing peace. Your making reference to Africa is something that we wholeheartedly endorse.
You invoked the spirit of this Europe of ours. Sixteen years ago today, on 17 January 1991, Helmut Kohl was elected the first Federal Chancellor of a reunited Germany, and you were a member of his government. Opinions differ on Helmut Kohl and there is much that can be seen differently from the way he – and you as a member of his government – saw it, but there is no disputing the fact that Helmut Kohl’s achievement was an historic one, in that he took Germany – reunited, free of every nationalistic attitude and of the desire to become a major power – and made it part of the European project. By so doing, he created confidence in the continent that had been reborn after the fall of the Wall, confidence in our country, a confidence that grew and spread throughout Europe. It is that spirit of confidence that indwells the Treaties of Maastricht and of Amsterdam.
That was the Europe of Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand, the Europe of Felipe González and Jacques Delors, the Europe of Jacques Santer, too; the Europe of many great men and women. I might add that it was also the Europe of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, who gave their assent to these Treaties. This was the Europe that had the will to achieve the re-ordering of our continent to the end that hatred and intolerance might be done away with, that division might be replaced by the common good.
There is one thing I would like to add, and it is that this was not easily arrived at; it had to be achieved and fought for; people had to commit themselves to it, and that is what these men and women did, and they did so for one simple reason, namely that they had learned from shared experience that the opposite of tolerance and the desire for peace is hatred and warfare, and if you do not want Europe to go back to that, you have to dedicate yourself to what you, Madam President-in-Office, called the soul of Europe, and for that soul you must fight. We are all alongside you and ready to do so!
Please permit me, though, Madam Federal Chancellor, to make a number of comments on what you had to say about the social Europe – which was not, in fact, very much at all. You have the right idea about freedom, and we agree with you on that score. Yes, indeed, freedom of opinion, the freedom of religion on our continent, to which we are committed, entrepreneurial freedom, artistic freedom – all these things are right and fundamental to the realisation of what we call the European model, but these freedoms cannot be made real without freedom from fear and freedom from social threats.
It is in social security that freedom is made real. What people on this continent expect of this Union, Madam President-in-Office, is that it should be social. If the Europe we are building does not give people the feeling that it is offering them social security, that Europe will have no foundation and will not be accepted.
You asked what it is that enables us to hold this Europe together, and that something is, indeed, technology, tolerance and the fostering of talents, but the model of success that we have derived from the second half of the twentieth century is about combining economic progress with social security. If we do not continue to do that, I can tell you, Madam Chancellor, that we in Europe are going to be in big trouble, and that is why I would ask you to add to your concept of freedom – which I unreservedly endorse – the idea that freedom is about social security too.
It is for that reason, Madam Chancellor, that I urge you to do something, something very important, and it is this. You spoke about the Constitution. This Constitution incorporates the European Union’s horizontal social commitment; the only thing is that it has not yet entered into force, but we can make this social commitment even before it does so. I call on you to join with the Commission in putting forward the machinery that will make it possible for the social impact of the EU’s legislation to be assessed. Everything we do happens in a single economic area, but also within the territory of twenty-seven sovereign states with their own specific national social security systems. Let us then gauge beforehand what effects the laws we make will have on the social mechanisms in the Member States. If we do that in advance, we will not have to do what we did with the Bolkestein directive, with us in Parliament making up afterwards for what the Commission lost.
Madam President-in-Office, eighteen Member States have said ‘yes’ to this Constitution. It has been rejected in two referendums, but endorsed in two others. It is together that Europe succeeds, and it is always one thing that makes shared success possible, namely the ability to compromise, the capacity for solidarity. What you have said about the constitution shows us the right way. Given that this Constitution enjoys majority support in Europe, let us start with what is at its heart and ask those who are sceptical about it to come up with their own suggestions as to how we, in a spirit of solidarity, might arrive at a satisfactory compromise, and then you will be on track.
Along with secure energy supplies, Europe needs fair partnership, especially with those states on whose cooperation we rely. You said what had to be said about the partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia, but what we also need is to realise that climate change is not going to be beaten unless we abandon the economics of waste."@en1
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