Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-06-Speech-3-142"
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"en.20090506.18.3-142"2
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"Mr President, some colleagues may find this hard to believe but I am going to miss you. In all the time I have known you, first as leader of the Christian Democrats and then as President of this Parliament, you have been a model of dignity, restraint and courtesy. You are an Anglophile as well as a Europhile and you represent all that is best in the integrationist tradition. You will be very relieved, no doubt, to hear that I cannot recall ever having agreed with you.
But in the career that we have both chosen, we know that ideological commitment is a rare commodity and we value it even when we find it in an opponent.
You will remember how we clashed over your interpretation of this House’s Rules of Procedure. Those of us who wanted referendums on the Constitutional Treaty had made our point in peaceable explanations of vote. Our right to do so was set out unequivocally in the Rules of Procedure. You chose arbitrarily to disapply those rules – you did not seek to change them, which would have required a certain amount of time, you simply disregarded them. This is not the time to have that argument all over again. Instead, let me say this: the President of this Chamber is meant to embody the entire House, including those who espouse minority views, and when you treat us differently you open the door to despotism. For example, virtually every month there are demonstrations here about something or other and they are tolerated, but when we held up placards with the one word ‘referendum’ you sent in the ushers to snatch away our banners and several of us were later fined.
I can understand why the word ‘referendum’ causes so much disquiet in this Chamber: the electorates of three nations had rejected your constitutional model. It made you feel vulnerable and that made you tetchy and, since you could hardly attack the voters directly, you took out all your frustration on us, the visible Eurosceptic minority in this Chamber.
Colleagues, I do not expect to change your minds about the desirability of centralising power in Brussels. But, from your own point of view, I would urge you to be a bit more even-handed in your dealings with those of us who are the minority. If only you could conquer your reflexive dislike for us, you might find that it would bolster your own democratic credentials. All organisations need their critics. Your insistence that the EU is an absolute good and that any criticism of it is either dishonest or xenophobic has done you no favours, because without critical scrutiny the Brussels institutions become bloated, self-serving and corrupt.
My friends, I hope that there will be many more of us
here in July. For the first time in 50 years, this Parliament will have something in the nature of an official opposition. It will be up to your successor, Hans-Gert, how to deal with that opposition, but I hope he will live up to the value of tolerance which this Chamber keeps claiming to espouse."@en1
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"souverainistes"1
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