Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-05-Speech-2-211"
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"en.20090505.22.2-211"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow you will decide whether or not to approve the Treaty of Lisbon. We naturally hope that you will extricate us from this prickly situation.
Having said this, we can only say that the situation in which we find ourselves today reveals yet again the total inadequacy of the treaty reform procedure. The unanimous procedure is a mistake. This Parliament made it a point of contention back in 1984 and proposed, together with Altiero Spinelli, that the treaties should be ratified by a majority and whoever did not wish to ratify them should be shown the door without compunction, with an agreement on how to move forward. We believe that this would have been a constitutional reform for the times and I am afraid that this Parliament has really wasted an opportunity in this term to be a driving force for integration and a driving force for the positive reform of treaties by putting up with this unsatisfactory procedure.
The President also emphasised, it is true, that the next European Council will take place after the elections – and also said, and many of us reiterated the sentiment, that this European Council should appoint the next Commission President. We do not think that this is necessary, however, particularly if there is no clarity over what will happen with the treaty: we believe that either the entire Commission, including its President, should be appointed in accordance with the Treaty of Nice, or that the President and also the Commission should be appointed in accordance with the Treaty of Lisbon. I think it would be a mistake to ‘mix and match’; it would be a swindle for the voters and the public, because it would make it even plainer that this institution is simply a door mat when it comes to the interests of Member States and governments.
Mr Swoboda, you very slightly laid into President Barroso for his politics, but I would like to repeat to you what our group has already been saying for some time: if we want to avoid President Barroso’s policies regaining the majority in this Parliament, not only must we win the elections but we must also put forward another candidate; something that your group refuses to do. President Barroso is obviously completely on his own in this campaign and I believe that this is a very serious mistake for which I believe that your group is chiefly responsible: the problem is not poor Mr McCreevy, but the approach of this entire parliamentary term, the efforts of Social Democrats like Mr Verheugen and other things that have not impressed us, or you, this term.
I want to say two things very quickly about the matter of the leadership, or the supposed leadership, of the European Union over climate change. One thing is very clear: the European Council did not want to put its money on the table. We do not therefore have a deal as things stand today, because it is clear that even if the United States comes in with us, if we do not offer a financial deal, EUR 100 billion, to countries that must adopt measures to adapt to and alleviate climate change, we will not have any agreement in Copenhagen. Since we were the ones that gave ourselves so many airs and graces as leaders, if we cannot put this money and these measures on the table, we will not succeed in obtaining a deal and most of the responsibility will lie with Europeans.
Moving on to the matter of the crisis in the financial market, I would like to say that we are a little inconsistent because on the one hand we are saying that we must absolutely manage them, we must limit them and we must regulate them, but on the other hand, when for example we propose that CARICOM should reach an agreement over this matter, what are we actually proposing? Total liberalisation of current accounts for all residents, of capital accounts for investors of practically limitless assets without any rules for financial services: for the matter of financial services, as for the matter of climate change, therefore, we are adopting rules that we cannot then manage to ensure are respected either internally or in our external dealings. I believe that consistency is the European Union’s true problem these days."@en1
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