Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-17-Speech-3-058"
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"en.20070117.3.3-058"2
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"Mr President, I give the warmest possible welcome to Mrs Merkel’s great dedication to ending the crisis around the ratification of the constitutional treaty, for that is the German Presidency’s first priority, by which its success or failure will be measured. This House has – in both cases by a very large majority – adopted two resolutions on the subject, in which we state that the treaty, as negotiated and signed, is the starting point for all discussions, and, in this case as in others, the
rule applies, so that trust may prevail between what are now twenty-seven Member States.
One possible solution could be solidity in substance combined with flexibility in form. What we would find unacceptable would be a mini-treaty that would contain institutional rules and nothing else, and would – to use your own words – deny Europe a soul, the ‘soul’ meaning all those elements with which people deal directly, things like not only the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, but also all the elements of direct and indirect democracy such as the citizens’ initiative, the strengthening of this House’s citizens’ chambers and also of our counterparts in the national parliaments. If this constitution is to be acceptable to this House, then those are the things that will have to be in it.
A shorter constitution might perhaps be one way of dealing with the crisis. What we have here is a book of 448 articles that hardly anyone can read and understand, and the third part of which is simply wrong-headed. Work will have to be done on producing a document with perhaps 100 articles that can be read in any school classroom. As for the timetable, I would recommend that this be completed perhaps as early as the Portuguese Presidency, since the problem has to be got out of the way before the next European elections. In that, Mrs Merkel, you will have this House’s support."@en1
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