Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-23-Speech-3-267"
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"en.20070523.20.3-267"2
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"Mr President, like millions of people the length and breadth of Europe, I am astonished by the creativity with which repeated attempts are made to resuscitate the EU constitution, which was formerly believed to be – and indeed pronounced to be – dead. In order to secure Brussels a licence to satisfy its evidently insatiable need for more powers, the spectre is conjured up of a European Union that is impotent and increasingly insignificant, but I do not believe that the object and point of the European Union, or indeed of European integration, can be to constantly undermine the Member States’ scope for sovereign decision-making.
Cooperation between governments is surely no less indispensable than the unanimity principle in the core areas of national sovereignty, particularly in foreign, security and defence policy. Our people have no need of an EU constitution negotiated secretively in backrooms, endowed with a revised dustjacket and small cosmetic adjustments, ratified by an aloof EU elite and sold as a new product. I do not expect the public, across Europe, to fall for that sort of trick with a change of labels. What we have to do is to abandon any new EU constitution in favour of a foundational treaty on the cooperation, as equals, of states and peoples secure in their own identities, relying, I believe, on the principle of maximising strength in our dealings with the outside world and freedom at home, as well as laying down a demarcation of powers between the European Union and the Member States that is not susceptible to misinterpretation. In all these areas, it will be necessary to let people have their say through the holding of referendums, for there is no doubting the need for weighty conventions such as this sort of foundational treaty to be made subject to a referendum by the people of the EU in the various Member States."@en1
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