Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-194"
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"en.20070522.23.2-194"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, Prime Minister Prodi, for that encouraging speech, to which I, as chairman of my group, have nothing further to add, for you have expressed what my group thinks, and we thank you for speaking in such plain terms.
We have no fear of you bringing the same clarity to the negotiations. The reason why we do not fear that prospect is that there will then be at least one strong head of government at the Intergovernmental Conference, one who is not prepared to agree to a compromise at any price, for a compromise that would surrender the substance of what we put into the Constitution would be no compromise at all, but rather a setback for the work of European integration, and so thank you for your clear affirmation.
My colleague Mr Nyrup Rasmussen had the opportunity to sit at the table in Nice, at which he helped negotiate the Treaty of Nice, and I have had frequent occasion to discuss this with him. When the fifteen Heads of Government who were at Nice left the chamber, they all described the result as inadequate, on the grounds that it was one of those minimal compromises that get reached in order to prevent even more Heads of Government nodding off.
That was why the Convention was summoned; it was summoned because those who had sat at the table in Nice said that this was not enough for the purpose of the enlargement that would come about, but it is coming, and, if we want to make a success of it, a new basis will be needed. So it was that they, reluctantly, agreed to our demand for a convention, knowing as they did that what the 15 had hammered out would not be enough for 27. At the Convention, a constitution was adopted, with people saying that the text was OK, and so they would vote for it. It was a good constitution, but it then got thrown out and we were thrown back on the Treaty of Nice. I would ask, though, whether what was true in the year 2000 – namely that Nice would not be enough for enlargement – has become false in 2007. Nice is indeed not enough for the purposes of enlargement, but enlargement has already happened, and on the basis of an inadequate treaty.
It is those who seek its destruction who want to leave the European Union in this state, those who want, whatever the cost, to prevent a new Treaty, and there must be no quarter given to them.
There are those who say that, while Nice may not be enough, it is still too much for them. Today I have heard a Head of Government say that there can be no compromise with people such as they. Those who want to go back to the days before Nice would be best advised to stay away from the Intergovernmental Conference. Now is the time for some straight talking. Eighteen of the Member States of the European Union have already ratified this constitutional treaty, two of them – Spain and Luxembourg – by means of a referendum. Why, in fact, do we put up with a state of affairs in which the only ones that get talked about are France and the Netherlands? Why is it not being said that this Treaty has received the support of two peoples, with, it might be added, more Europeans having cast a ‘yes’ vote for the Constitution than cast a ‘no’ vote against it? That is another truth about European democracy that should be spoken out loud now.
The European Union exemplifies peace at home, social stability, the combination of economic growth and social stability and of the export of values as a basis for policy in the international sphere. There is much in the existing foundational treaties that needs to be changed if this model of success is to survive. In his novel, ‘The Leopard’ the Italian author Tomasi di Lampedusa has Tancredi, the nephew of the Prince of Salina, tell his uncle, in splendid words, that ‘everything must change if everything is to stay as it is’. If Europe wants to remain as successful as it is, it must change the treaties that underpin it, and if you fight like a leopard, then you will find us fighting alongside you."@en1
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