Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-11-Speech-3-071"
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"en.20070711.5.3-071"2
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"Mr President, Europe is about more than just its treaties; its difficulties are not solely – and not even principally – of an institutional nature, and the revival of Europe will have to hinge on policies, European projects and the EU budget. However, it is a fact that the deadlock on the reform of the institutions, the failure to ratify the Constitution in several countries and the non-ratification procedures in others have bogged Europe down, plunged it into crisis and tested its unity.
In fact, the compromise reached to convene the Intergovernmental Conference and the mandate in view of the future modifying treaty do not arouse enthusiasm. Everything is complicated in this agreement, which contains many footnotes, so much so that the future treaty will not be simplified at all and will be difficult for Europeans to understand.
The opt-out that has been granted concerning the Charter of Fundamental Rights is truly appalling on the part of those who requested it. At least this Charter will apply to the 26 other EU countries, and that does them great credit. However, at least this agreement is an agreement, and came at a time when Europe needed to affirm its unity.
I believe that we have to give every opportunity to the Intergovernmental Conference and, above all – and, on this particular point, I would like to react to the remarks made by my fellow Member, Mr Wurtz – the mandate for convening the Intergovernmental Conference has at least one virtue: that of basing its work on the institutional innovations that were, for the most part, contained in the first part of the draft European Constitution. That is a key point since the first part of the Constitution was scarcely challenged, even by the 'No' camp, those who claim to adhere to European integration in any case, in the countries in which referendums were held.
The future treaty should therefore take up the elements on which there is a consensus among all sincere Europeans, whether they voted ‘Yes’ or ‘No' to the Constitution: there should be enhanced powers for the European Parliament and the national parliaments, a stable Council Presidency, double majority voting, fewer blocking minorities, fewer unanimous decisions taken, not least regarding judicial and police cooperation, an enhanced common foreign and security policy, enhanced and structured cooperation in the area of defence policy, which will be easier to implement, and new powers in the areas of energy and climate change.
Furthermore, there are also two points that were in the third part but that, I believe, all the progressives will want to protect: the horizontal social clause and an article making it possible to protect services of general economic interest and, therefore, to adopt a directive in favour of public services. I hope that, if the Intergovernmental Conference takes up all these points, all the advocates of Europe, whether they voted ‘Yes’ or 'No' to the draft Constitution, will support the future draft treaty."@en1
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