Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-190"
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"en.20070522.23.2-190"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we stand at a crossroads for the future of Europe and of European integration, and it is in that knowledge, and not without emotion, that I address you today. I am most grateful to the President, Hans Gert Poettering, for this opportunity.
It is the principle whereby, in furthering European integration, it is essential always to make an effort to understand the arguments of the other side and in some way to take them on board. We have always made this effort, and we shall continue to do so.
However, we also expect the other side to be just as understanding. We expect them
to take on board our aspirations, which in this case, as you all know very well, are to work towards ever closer union.
Bearing this principle in mind, we shall make every effort to help the German and Portuguese Presidencies to preserve as much as possible of our ambition for union, while also taking the other side’s arguments into account as much as possible.
Having established that, I must now say what in my view we cannot allow the June European Council and the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference to do.
First of all, we must remember that, this time, keeping to the timetable is directly associated with a question of democracy. In 2009, Europe’s voters will need to know what kind of Europe they are being asked to vote on. What role will the European Parliament have? What will its duties be? Will there be a stable Council Presidency, and a European Foreign Minister? How will the Commission be formed? And so forth.
The Intergovernmental Conference therefore needs to be given a precise and selective mandate, with a clear indication of the few significant sticking points for negotiation and, above all, how to resolve them. Only by doing that will we succeed in honouring our promise to formulate the new rules by 2009.
If it were given an open mandate, the Conference would be unlikely to reach a conclusion by the end of 2007, and the time needed to process the new agreement at national level would mean that the process could not be completed by early 2009. In short, it would automatically result in an impasse.
Allow me to make an observation at this point. This is something that suddenly occurred to me the other day after rereading the 2004 Constitutional Treaty – I would ask you all to have another look at it, now that some time has passed and it is possible to be more objective.
Well, the document produced in 2004 is good, really good, and it has a broad, Europe-wide reach. Above all, its first part puts across in a clear and intelligible manner the meaning and the vision of the great common enterprise on which we have embarked.
We should therefore think twice before we shelve it and set off down the path of plugging new elements into the existing treaties, whether wholly or in part. We would also be throwing out all its existing simplicity and legibility, at the cost of the people's understanding and, hence, of their support for the European project.
Between now and the 2009 elections, Europe will be playing for its own future. In a month’s time, the European Council will decide on launching an Intergovernmental Conference, at the end of which we must be able to say that we are equal to the commitments that we all adopted together in Berlin on 25 March this year.
Most of all, however, we would be throwing out a text that provides a consistent view of Europe, a text that is able to combine the ideals held by many of us with the practical need, which everyone recognises, to endow our Union with more solid rules and sufficient resources to meet its new challenges.
The way the negotiations have gone so far makes me think that, unfortunately, we shall have to meddle with the 2004 text again. Yet I would like to put it on record in front of you all here today that I am convinced that in doing so we will be depriving ourselves of something very important. For those of us who believe in the European project, that would be an enormous sacrifice, and a very high price to pay for all those who have ratified it and made a democratic investment in doing so. We need to remember that.
That is why we cannot accept any disfigurement of the existing institutional package. Strengthening our common foreign and security policy by appointing a foreign minister, having a stable Council Presidency, extending qualified majority voting, overturning the three-pillar structure, and providing the Union with a legal personality are all, for us, essential points that need to be safeguarded.
I should like here to warn against certain appeals for ‘realism’, which are typical on the eve of a major European Council and unfailingly seek to achieve a watered-down compromise. I would point out, however, that if the major global challenges can only be addressed at a European level, then the people who want a Europe that is equal to such challenges are the ones who are being genuinely realistic, and not the people who do not want that.
Internally, I would mention upholding the European social model and creating a genuine area of freedom, security and justice. How can anyone fail to see that this is a vital complement for a European citizenship that identifies with more than just the economic dimension?
Externally, I would mention wars, the fight against international terrorism, and the global challenges of energy and climate change (hydrogen). How can anyone deny that the only way to make our choices and our values prevail on the international stage is by being able to express a foreign policy worthy of the name and communicating it to the world with one voice?
As regards the structure of the European Union, you must not believe that it is merely a theoretical issue. The complexity of the Union is one of the main reasons for the gap between it and the people. How can anyone not see the advantages, then, of overturning the pillar structure, especially in terms of clarity and understanding on the part of the people?
The 2004 Constitutional Treaty provides convincing solutions for these points. Do we really want to sacrifice them for the sake of a watered-down approach that resorts to the lowest common denominator? Do we really want to risk making the system even more complex by refusing to make in-depth changes and confining ourselves to merely touching it up here and there? Do we really want to continue proceeding ‘with our face masked’, to use Jacques Delors’ expression, for fear of revealing the real Europe to our citizens?
Therefore, my dear Members of this Parliament, representatives of Europe’s citizens, let us try not to lend support to the negative rhetoric on Europe. Let us not go on concealing it from our fellow citizens.
Let us show them this Europe, instead, and show it proudly. Let everyone see what it has done for us in terms of peace and prosperity; let us explain how vital it is for our lives. Let us tell our fellow citizens once and for all that in a world that is now a system of continents it makes no sense for a country and its citizens to live outside a political and economic aggregation that is internally strong and externally respected.
It is a question of deciding what Europe needs – what we all need – in order to address the challenges that the world imposes on us. This sounds like an abstract issue, but in fact it is highly concrete. We ought to have realised by now that the ability of us Europeans to interpret the globalised world and to take the opportunities it offers depends on how we are able to make our joint institutions operate.
Italy will therefore make every effort in these negotiations to secure a worthy compromise. I am convinced that we can succeed and that, all together, we must succeed.
Of course, if it proves impossible for all 27 countries to agree, then there will be the problem of how to proceed. That dilemma can only be resolved if we go back to that fundamental principle that I mentioned at the beginning of my address: the very ethics of the Union require that nobody should block other people’s aspirations too much or for too long.
That is why Italy, a country that has always believed deeply in Europe, realises that it now has a further duty: it must imagine – or start imagining – how to enable countries that are willing to do so to make real progress in furthering European unity.
I do not think that all countries necessarily have to proceed together at the same speed. I hope they will, and I shall try to make that happen. I realise, however, that it is not always possible. Even now, though, some of Europe’s most significant political decisions, such as the euro and the creation of the Schengen area, have been put into practice by just some of the Member States. They have not been aimed against any State; they have not excluded the others; instead, the door has been left open. Furthermore, these decisions have been respected by those that at the time did not feel ready to move in a certain direction right away.
I therefore hope that this same constructive approach will also hold good in future and that it will prevail over any attempt to use a veto.
Italy, as you well know, has always thought that being pro-European is the best way to be far-sighted.
Today, however, being far-sighted does not only mean drawing up ambitious plans for the future of European integration. It also means addressing the issue of allowing those peoples who want to do so to realise their ambitions of union at the pace and in the manner that are best suited to them.
If nobody ever takes the trouble to consider such an eventuality, we run the risk that the European project will run aground and that the ideals of all those who over the years have believed passionately in it will be frustrated. Even countries like mine, which have invested unreservedly in the integration of Europe for 50 years, might eventually run out of enthusiasm.
I therefore want to conclude with a two-fold message.
Italy will give the German and, later, the Portuguese Presidency the utmost support to ensure that the European Council of 21 and 22 June and the subsequent Intergovernmental Conference are a success with which all the Member States can identify.
I must say straight away that, quite frankly, I do not agree with those who continue to contrast the need to produce results with the need to strengthen Europe’s institutions. It is precisely in order to get more results that I have always hoped and fought for stronger and more effective joint institutions.
At the same time, Italy is well aware that a compromise is not an end in itself, and that therefore, if we are not convinced by such a compromise, we will not subscribe to it. A fast-track group of countries might then prove to be the best way to advance along the road to an ever closer Union, on condition that the door is always left open to any country that might want to join them at a later date.
Allow me finally to make a strong appeal to the members of our parliaments, the direct representatives of the citizens. Above all, I address the Members of this Parliament, who represent the people of Europe. You have an irreplaceable role in making the citizens understand what is at stake.
We will only be able to create the conditions for successful constitutional talks if the work of our governments is supported by
work.
We have to realise that we must not fail, or the result will be decline: the decline of an advanced idea of Europe, of a Europe that is able to be a leading player in the world thanks to its underlying values. In short, we would risk once again becoming a little western appendage of Asia, a fate to which we would be consigned not only by geography, but also by future history. Thank you.
This time we are not starting from scratch. In other words, we do not have to reinvent the wheel. In October 2004, all the European countries signed a treaty and 18 countries have actually ratified it. Over these last two years, it has been the arguments of those who are hesitant that have been heard most of all. The time has now come to listen to those who have ratified the 2004 treaty, those who have worked hard, including with their own citizens, to stay on that path.
They had embarked on that path a few years previously at Laeken, where it had unfolded from a fundamental and irrefutable starting point: that Europe could not achieve ambitious results without equally ambitious reforms.
Well, I am convinced that that remains a valid point. We must therefore start again from October 2004, putting aside the struggles and pauses for reflection of these last two years and thinking seriously and responsibly about our future and that of our children.
It is not simply a matter of agreeing on the new rules that we need. There are other equally urgent requirements, without which Europe will be unable to function. These include a budget worthy of the name, and genuine policies for tackling the major challenges that modern life is throwing at us: energy, climate change, the North-South divide, and so on. However, let us start today with the most urgent issue, which is to find a way out of the constitutional stalemate and to reform the institutions.
To be successful in this, we have to hold faith with a principle that lies at the basis of our existence as the European Union, a principle so fundamental that it defines the very ethics of our being together."@en1
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