Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-022"
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"en.20070314.3.3-022"2
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"Mr President, this Berlin Declaration fails to recognise that the EU is making us poorer and less democratic and less free. It seeks to dodge the one huge issue that is really exercising heads of government across the EU: this is the elephant in the room, and it is called the European Constitution.
In 2005 the peoples of France and Holland voted decisively against the EU Constitution and in its own terms, it should now be dead, finished, kaput. But, like Dracula or Frankenstein, it refuses to lie down. Our President-in-Office, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, without a backward glance at the voters of France and Holland, is determined to bring it back in all its essentials. We know what the plan is and we will make sure that the people know.
First, the Council will take out all the elements which cause offence but are merely restatements of the status quo. Why upset the voters with talk of the supremacy of EU law when that supremacy already exists de facto? The very word ‘constitution’ has caused alarm in itself, so they will say it is merely a treaty, or even a mini-treaty. They will use every possible device of procedure and national constitutional law and timing to ensure that no referendums take place, or that they take place only in small countries when all the large countries have ratified. Already we see the Labour Government in Britain softening up the public before it breaks its solemn pledge to hold a referendum. ‘It is only about administrative details,’ it will say, ‘it does not justify a referendum’.
We boast about being a Union of values based on democracy and the rule of law, yet in this process we show breathtaking contempt for the people and their views. We are trampling on their identity and their aspirations. We are defying the rule of law and democracy, but you cannot fool all of the people, all of the time. When the backlash comes – as it surely will come – it will sweep away this failing European project."@en1
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