Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-10-23-Speech-2-095"
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"en.20071023.7.2-095"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you for the excellent debate we have had on the summit and the Lisbon Treaty.
I think that all who realise that a politician has to deal with reality rather than with fantasy will support what was decided in Lisbon. As for ratification, I would like to be clear that it is the business of each country. However, what I cannot accept as a democrat is for those who argue for national referendums to do so by trying to diminish representative democracy, challenging the legitimacy of parliamentary ratification.
I am a democrat and Europe is democratic, and being democrats we leave each country free to decide the best method of ratification.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yes, I am very proud, yes I am very satisfied, yes, I feel very honoured to have been part, along with many others, of a historic and decisive moment, the moment in which the Lisbon Treaty was born, because it means that Europe will move forward.
Firstly, say what you like about this new Treaty, but one thing no one can deny is that Europe is stronger as a result of this Treaty. This Treaty affirms European values, the good values that were always the foundation of the European integration project. This Treaty boosts the European economy and creates the conditions for Europe better to play its role in the world.
As many have observed, this is a Treaty that makes the European institutions and the political workings of Europe more democratic. This Treaty equips the European Union of 27 for more effective decision-making. Those who like democracy also like democracy to be appreciated as a method that allows effective decision-making, and all those who follow European political life understand that Europe needed more effective decision-making.
Finally, I would like to say to anyone who has doubts about the Treaty and Europe’s capability, please wake up to reality; the world has already reached its conclusion on the Treaty. Europe has become stronger, better able to respond to global challenges, better able to respond to strategic challenges, and since Lisbon the world has been looking to Europe in the hope that it will once again take up its role in the world.
No, this Treaty means progress for us. Other people have already said it about Europe: no, do not doubt; wake up, we are stronger. Europe is more confident since the Lisbon Agreement and Europe is now in a position to take a stance on the future; it can move from the defensive to the offensive.
Graham Watson was kind enough to mention Pessoa in his speech. I would like to thank him very much for this personal kindness, as Pessoa is one of our great poets and I would like to quote Pessoa again: he once spoke about ‘a nostalgia for the future’. I too, as a European, am nostalgic for the future and I am nostalgic for the time when Europe discussed the future, showed leadership, and I am nostalgic for those days and I believe that this Treaty provides the conditions to enable Europe to do that.
If you will allow me, Mr President, I would like to clarify two things: the first is about the President of Parliament, to tell Members that it never entered anybody’s head that the Council might propose that the President of Parliament should lose the right to vote. The President will of course retain that right; I do not know how this mistaken idea arose, but what the Council decided is that this Parliament will have 751 Members (750 plus the President). Next I would like to say that the Ioannina clause has been resolved, as I always said it would be. Ioannina must be legally binding, but should not be in the Treaty, and the solution we came up with of a declaration plus a protocol is fully in line with the mandate we were given.
I too would like to praise the previous Presidency, as I have always done and always do in the same way. Throughout the whole process of this Treaty there were two decisive moments. The first came last October when Angela Merkel decided to make the Treaty the main issue of her Presidency and of future presidencies. This move required political courage and was a political risk. At the time no one thought it had much chance of success. I call this a decisive moment because Europe needed to get back to politics and also to get back to courage and political risk. The other decisive moment, as I said earlier, was when we decided, taking the opportunity of the last Council, to reach agreement in October rather than leave it for December.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to finish by saying that certainly many people, and many people in Europe, who never believed in Europe are as dissatisfied with this Treaty as they would be with any other Treaty. However, perhaps there are some who would like a different Treaty and with them it is worth having a dialogue, to tell them that at this point the alternative was either to have this Treaty or to remain in a state of institutional crisis."@en1
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