Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-021"
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"en.20070606.12.3-021"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, there is no need for me to repeat what Mr Barón Crespo has said, as I agree with every word.
For this reason, we should support the German Council Presidency. We should prepare the ground for the provision of the necessary substance, and win all 27 peoples and Member States over to this objective, so as to give this Intergovernmental Conference a clear and clearly delimited mandate. We must ensure that the substance of the Constitutional Treaty is present, so that negotiations are based on this Treaty alone. In addition, the Constitutional Treaty should be in force by the next elections to the European Parliament, so that citizens will be able to work with their new rights and, in future, to decide themselves at European elections who the new Commission President should be. This is a decisive contribution to strengthening the role of citizens. I would ask for the support of the House for this strategy, on which the Committee on Constitutional Affairs decided by a large majority.
As the Berlin Declaration also states, thanks to the European Union, Europe – the western part, to begin with – has experienced the most peaceful, free, social and economically successful period in the whole history of this continent. Following the events of 1989 and the EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007, we have the great opportunity of securing this for the rest of the continent, too. This Constitutional Treaty aims to ensure that the Union of 27 can also enjoy these achievements. This success story must not be endangered. The 27 countries must be capable of action and be on an equal footing, and we should avoid Europe disintegrating again into various groups.
This must also be viewed in the light of the challenges we face, challenges that none of our nation-states can meet alone: such as globalisation and its economic and social consequences, the fight against terrorism, and the development of our foreign and security policy. We know that energy, and thus energy security, is not now within the area of authority of the EU, but we also know that the security of all our Member States is at stake and that we must therefore be capable of action in this field. The issue of the Minister for Foreign Affairs should also be addressed. We need a treaty organisation that, via a single legal personality, gives us the ability to act externally, too. Consequently, such matters concerning the substance of the Constitutional Treaty are vital if we are not only to prevent all war in Europe, as we have in the past, but also, in the interests of our citizens and nations, to increase our capacity for action in areas where nation-states alone cannot do any better.
This must be done transparently and democratically if we are to have legitimacy with our citizens, too. Efficiency, transparency, democracy and civil rights are essential components of the arrangement to be decided at the Summit and the Intergovernmental Conference. We have to make clear that this arrangement must strike a reasonable balance between the institutions, including in relation to the national parliaments, which should assume a more important role under the principle of subsidiarity. We must ensure it is made clear that the EU neither is nor wants to become a state, but that capacity for action will be established in areas where Member States believe joint action is better.
As part of this, we must accept and foster the identity of our peoples in future. Europe is not taking the place of the nation-states; instead it is a common organisation to make these nation-states stronger together. This is what the starting point must be. At the same time, the European Union must be based on equality between large and small, rich and poor. This is why double voting – whereby each country, large or small, has one vote – is so important.
We also have to look at the distribution of powers and responsibilities and, with it, the principle of subsidiarity and the extension of majority voting. We cannot fight terrorism and organised crime successfully unless we have majority voting in the necessary fields, such as internal policy.
I also believe that our Europe must be based on values. The Charter of Fundamental Rights is an essential component as far as Parliament is concerned.
All of this has to be incorporated – which is why the legal personality and the removal of the pillar structure are so important. The EU’s success story is based on our being a common body of law in the fields in which we have powers and responsibilities, and on our use of the Monnet method. The intergovernmental approach has always failed. The EFTA has failed, whilst the EU has been a winner thanks to the Monnet method. That is why we should not now fall back on methods that have failed in the past."@en1
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