Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-063"
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"en.20071010.16.3-063"2
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"Mr President, it is very nice to have my name on the wall together with a Secretary of State and a Commissioner – it is a big moment!
I would like to make three points if you would allow me. I have been involved in three intergovernmental conferences myself as a civil servant. My view on intergovernmental conferences is that, for the past 25 years, we have either been preparing, negotiating or ratifying a new Treaty. I do not know about you guys – Mr Corbett and the others – I, at least, am getting to the stage of IGC fatigue. We need to get this over and done with. There have been too many IGCs; they have been constant. I am not against change – quite the contrary – but at some stage we need to calm down, and I think, in two weeks, we will end up doing that.
My second observation is that, of course, I would have liked to have had a Constitution, but let us live with the reformed Treaty as it stands. It is a great improvement on what we have. Of course, we all have criticisms, not least on the opt-outs, not least on the question of whether it is simplified or actually more complicated. We all have our qualms, but remember: it is very strong on foreign policy; it gives us a legal personality; it gives us fundamental rights – at least some of us – and it gives us more qualified majority voting. Of course, there is always room for improvement at the end of the day, but this reformed Treaty is what we have. So, to the UK and to Poland I say, ‘Calm down and accept it’.
The final point I have is that I really do believe that it is time to try to restore trust between the Member States. We have been on a negative wave ever since the Nice negotiations, when the small were pitted against the big. Now it is time, I think, to bury the axe and restore trust, the way in which we used to have it before Nice. It is time to calm the institutions down, settle the issues and focus on real policymaking."@en1
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