Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-11-Speech-3-036"
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"Mr President, let me complement Prime Minister Reinfeldt’s assessment of the European Council by commenting on two aspects, one on policy and one on institutional issues.
It is not for me to comment on the candidates for the Presidency of the European Council but, as Commission President and looking at the institutional matters, I very much hope that Heads of State or Government will select the personality that can provide effective leadership to the European Council – a President with a strong European commitment that can give consistency over time to European Council activity, both internally, so that priorities can be set over a longer timeframe and not just for six months, and externally, so that on common foreign and security policy, we send coherent messages to our international partners.
I am committed to working in tandem with this President of the European Council because that partnership will make all the difference. We need to pull together at the level of Heads of State or Government the common foreign and security policy on which the President of the European Council will represent the European Union at this level. We also have to put together all Community competences – from the economy to trade, from enlargement to development, from energy to justice – where the European Commission President represents the European Union according to the treaty. I am committed to making this partnership work in the interests of a strong and effective European Union at home and globally.
That is obviously also true for the High Representative. Here, I confess to a particular interest because that High Representative will also be one of the European Commission Vice-Presidents. On a very pragmatic level, because the nomination of the Vice-President/High Representative, and the other proposals by Member States for the Commission, will allow me to pass to the phase of finalising the next College and attributing portfolios. On a political level, because I am convinced that this High Representative/Vice-President, supported by a strong External Action Service bringing together European expertise in intergovernmental diplomacy with our Community competences, can mean a real step change in the effectiveness of our external action.
This brings me to the Commission as a whole. I want a Commission composed of competent and committed Europeans, a Commission that is ready to take all its right of initiative. I am working in my final discussions with Member States to ensure that this is the case. I have asked Member States to come forward with names, including women. Then it will be for me to decide on portfolios. Portfolios are not attributed to countries but to persons that are committed to our European project.
I also want to have a Commission with a strong democratic mandate. That is why I am determined to give full respect to the hearings process in this Parliament. The delays due to the treaty have given us a common challenge. We must not delay the arrival of a new Commission, but we cannot short-cut the hearings. I look forward to discussing how to handle this issue in the Conference of Presidents next week.
The Lisbon Treaty will enable us to deliver better on citizens’ expectations – but whether we use the opportunities it offers will be, first and foremost, a matter of political will. The treaty gives us the capacity to act but we need the willingness to act together.
That brings me back to the beginning of our afternoon. The Europe represented here today – a Europe united in freedom and solidarity – would not have been possible without the commitment and the dedication of people who made extraordinary things happen 20 years ago. We need to rekindle this flame. We need to have the spirit of 1989. If we show the same dedication and commitment, I am sure we will succeed.
As regards policy, the key deliverable was the very important agreement on our action on climate change. We all know these are difficult issues. When there is so much at stake, the road will never be easy. Frankly, the European Council result exceeded my initial expectations. We got the approval of the numbers the Commission proposed, accompanied by strong conditionality.
The message is clear: the European Union is ready for Copenhagen and ready to follow our action to cut emissions with a powerful offer on climate finance, just as the Commission proposed in September, both in the longer term and in ‘fast start’ funding.
If we want developing countries to come to the table with serious commitments on mitigation, then we need developed countries to put money on the table. Our assessment is that by 2020, developing countries will need around an additional EUR 100 billion a year to tackle climate change and this was fully backed by the European Council, as is the likely share of public international finance in that figure, and agreement that the European Union will pay its fair share.
It is equally clear: other partners must show that they can match the seriousness of our intent. Our policy is not about the European Union forging ahead in the vague hope that others will follow. It is about using our leverage to bring about the maximum possible in terms of a global effort to cut emissions.
When I was in Washington and New Delhi last week, I was reminded just how far these two partners have come in the past year or so. The same is true of others, like China. Of course, we will continue to respect the important requirement of common but differential responsibility for climate change but, as I have said many times recently, we are all in this together, and we in the European Union will continue to push for real contributions from all the other players. We need to keep focused on the end goal – ambitious, serious, verifiable cuts in emissions to ensure that we keep within our target of limiting temperature increase to less than 2 °C.
So what are the prospects for Copenhagen? It now seems to be likely that Copenhagen will not see agreement to the fully-fledged treaty that we have pushed for and will continue to push for. But that is not a reason to accept anything less than a decisive breakthrough in these negotiations. In the end, it is content that matters more than form. In my view, we should try to arrive at a fully operational agreement, based on real political commitments, that comes rapidly into force, and which brings all the major players on board for both emission reductions and finance. And we should continue to fight on for final agreement to a treaty – a binding treaty. To make that happen, we need to join all our forces in the weeks remaining to Copenhagen.
We have just shown that we can, by decisive joint action, agree on a treaty that has proven elusive for a very long time. That was the other major result of the European Council: it lifted the last political hurdle to the final ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. Now we can look forward with confidence because, as Prime Minister Reinfeldt said, the Lisbon Treaty will be in place at the start of next month. In fact, the Commission is working on its implementation. Today, the Commission has launched a consultation on the Citizens’ Initiative as a first, concrete step.
I would like to pay tribute to Prime Minister Reinfeldt for his sure touch in bringing this ship into port. The Swedish Presidency has done very remarkable work in bringing this final consensus to the European Council. But now we have to complete the task of transition. The focus is, of course, very much on the filling of the new posts."@en1
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