Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-350"
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"en.20070314.24.3-350"2
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"Mr President, colleagues: you lost. The Charter of Fundamental Rights would have been given legal force by the European constitution but that constitution, it seems necessary periodically to remind this House, was rejected. 55% of French voters and 62% of Dutch voters said ‘no’. Simply to disregard those results and carry on as if the Charter were in force would be outrageous, yet that is precisely what you propose to do. Indeed, it is precisely what you are doing. As the Voggenhuber report cheerfully admits, the various institutions of the EU are proceeding as if the Charter were already justiceable. Indeed, this report may be summarised as an attempt to regularise an illegal and undemocratic extension of EU jurisdiction.
I hope we can take it as read that every one of us here believes in basic civil liberties. We all support freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of assembly and so on. But some of us object to the way in which these vital matters are being lifted out of the hands of our accountable national governments and subjected to the whims of European judges.
The EU is wanting, not in its respect for basic human rights, but in its respect for democracy. Paper entitlements, unaccompanied by democratic accountability, are meaningless. The principles adumbrated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights could equally be found in, say, the constitution of East Germany or that of the Soviet Union, but as the peoples of those unhappy states knew, written charters are worthless if you cannot hold your rulers to account.
Do we really need to learn that lesson again in the EU?"@en1
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