Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-10-Speech-3-076"
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"en.20071010.17.3-076"2
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".
Madam President, my Group will not be voting for this report because the proposed system of representation, and the distribution of seats, disregards basic democratic principles, sustains historic inequalities and is contrary to the nature of this House as representative of the citizens and of its electors.
These are not dreams that are not being fulfilled. Yes, Mr Severin, there are many who are wanting a great deal, but what we should all be wanting is to be getting some idea of what a Parliament is. A Parliament is not – as the rapporteurs told us in their letter yesterday evening – the representation of the Member States’ socioeconomic capacity. No, it is the representation of the electors and nothing more. It is the representation of citizens or it is not a Parliament! It is not a Parliament if there is no demos on which to base ourselves, and it is not true that the term citizenship in Europe has nothing to do with the term under international law or the term citizenship in the United States. It is precisely the same and I would advise you to look at the existing treaties. I would advise you to look at the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, in which the rights of those citizens are laid down. I would advise you to look at the rules governing access to the European Court of Justice. I would advise you to look at the rules on how we become voters. Then you will recognise that it is the easiest thing in the world to find out who is a citizen of this Union and who is entitled to vote for this Parliament. This is decided every five years.
The inhabitants, the population, these are a symbolic expression of socio-economic capacity. But we have already failed here once, when we were asked in Nice: dear Parliament, just tell us yourself what you want your composition to be. We failed on that occasion. Unfortunately, we have not used those seven years to clarify what this Parliament is. We are therefore reassessing the historical nonsense and the historical practical constraints that have arisen to date. These do not have anything at all to do with democracy and thinking on the Constitution."@en1
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