Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-07-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20070607.3.4-014"2
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"Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate Chancellor Merkel and Minister Steinmeier for their tremendous efforts so far in trying to find common ground and areas of agreement between what are very disparate ideas as regards the future of Europe. In saying that, he did not want to tell us everything that he knows or everything that he has experienced over the last number of months of these negotiations and discussions. It is also quite amazing and shocking that there is a failure to take movements on core principles and issues of the Berlin Declaration that was agreed by all Member States and approved by this Parliament. We already have agreements on that where we can act together.
We spoke eloquently yesterday in this Parliament about the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War and all the things that we could be doing and should be doing if only we had a Constitution. We do not need the Constitution to take immediate action to solve the humanitarian crisis for the people of Palestine. That can be done simply by agreement and by decision. We have already made some moves towards that. There are other areas in which we can move forward, so this idea that has been put forward that without this final agreement we will suddenly fall into a state of paralysis, is incorrect. Mechanisms will be found to overcome the problems and the difficulties.
In saying that, I believe we should have a new Constitution. I believe we should have a new Treaty that clearly sets out the roles and defines the powers of the European institutions. I believe that the rights of the citizen should be protected within that Constitution or within that Treaty. I believe that the ongoing goals and ideals of the European Union should be clearly expressed within that Constitution, that it should stand for democracy, freedom and the rights of peoples; that it should ensure that the rights of Member States are not undermined and to ensure that the voice of the peoples through their elected representatives is allowed an equal voice with other institutions within other organisations.
But I also believe that there is an onus on us when we speak about what the people want to see us doing. The people do not want to see us taking on new initiatives that we do not have the power to do at the present time. In fact I was quite shocked that the President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council made such a bombastic and ballistic attack on a single country when he was supposed to be acting in a neutral position. Mr Steinbrück wrongly made an attack on Ireland and wrongly made an attack with regard to the arrangements that were put in place and agreed by the Member States and the European Commission.
Finally, when we look to the future of the European Union, the future that we must deliver to our children and our grandchildren must be better than what our grandparents gave to us, and they gave it to us out of the ashes of the Second World War. Look at the beautiful child that they created. Let us make that child an adult fit for the 21st century."@en1
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