Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-048"
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"en.20071023.7.2-048"2
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".
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, General de Gaulle said of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing: ‘His problem is the people’. This statement would apply rather well to the European Council today. Once again, at the summit, the 27 Member States showed themselves to be very adept at horse-trading. The Prévert-style inventory of concessions granted to all the recalcitrant Member States deserves a mention. This is the cost of getting everyone to agree, from the descendents of the EU’s founding fathers to the most inveterate Euro sceptics.
In the end, only two or three things seem untouchable, and in the European Council nobody has thought of touching them. For example, the restrictive framework that the European Union’s economic and social policies must fit into: an open market economy with free competition, the issue of credit by the European Central Bank, the orientations of the Stability Pact, strict respect for freedom of movement of capital, the gradual removal of everything investors consider a barrier to trade, and the concentration of key powers in the institutions, which are inaccessible to citizens, national parliaments and even governments themselves, particularly in smaller countries, and indeed the dimensions assumed by military aspects in the European Union’s foreign policy.
These are ‘red lines’, as they say in English, which must not be crossed according to the EU’s ruling circles. The problem is that it is precisely at these issues that most of the questions and criticisms from our people are directed, and it is the persistent absence of answers to these questions, the repeated refusal to hear these criticisms, that is fuelling the crisis of confidence that the European Union is suffering from among our fellow citizens. Furthermore, if the members of the European Council had opened the windows of their meeting room on 18 October, they would have been able to measure the strength of this disaffection in person, as expressed on the streets of Lisbon by the largest demonstration seen in Portugal in the last 20 years, and I think that neither Mr Sócrates nor Mr Barroso will contradict me on this point.
The ultimate challenge for the European Union – we read in the Commission Communication at the Lisbon summit – is to explain to citizens what the European Union represents for Europeans. Always explaining, never taking account. Always communicating, never having open debates and therefore, with greater reason, not having referendums. Yes, the European Council’s problem is the people, but without the people there would be no future for a great European ambition. Surely this question really deserves to be discussed openly one day? That is what I am asking you."@en1
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