Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-11-Speech-3-048"
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"en.20091111.13.3-048"2
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"Mr President, the President of the European Commission was saying that he congratulated Mr Reinfeldt on having brought the ship safely to harbour, the ship in question being the Treaty of Lisbon.
Two years ago, in this House, I was saying that I was afraid that the Treaty of Lisbon might end up like the fish in
Hemingway’s novella, which, after a long battle, arrived at the harbour almost as a pile of bones. Well, I can see that the Treaty of Lisbon has not arrived at harbour as a pile of bones, but that its essence is still there. Thank you, Mr Reinfeldt; thank you, Cecilia.
I must say, however, that I believe that what you have done, in seeking the agreement with the President of the Czech Republic, is right. Many of us in this House were troubled by the behaviour of the President of the Czech Republic, but there is a Spanish poet who says: ‘after everything, everything has been nothing’; in the end, the important thing is that the treaty is in force and that now we are thinking about the implementation of the treaty.
Mr Barroso, it is not my intention either to give you any advice on how you ought to form your Commission, partly because I respect the autonomy and independence of the President of the Commission, who has received a substantial vote asking him to do this. When you present your college of Commissioners and the division of responsibilities, we will tell you whether we are for or against, but today, you have our full support.
Neither do I intend to give any advice, clearly, to the President-in-Office of the Council, but, if you will permit me, I would like to point out to you something that happened during the work done on the constitutional treaty. In the first draft, which created the post of the President of the Council, there was a proposal that this Council President should be a prime minister who had been in office for at least two and a half years (as a joke, Mr Reinfeldt, we called it the ‘Bruton clause’, after John Bruton, because John told us that he had been prime minister for two years and seven months, and therefore would be eligible for the post). However, we later removed this condition – Mr Duff remembers – and we removed it because in this Parliament, we were asked what there was in the DNA of a prime minister that was not possessed by other mortals’ DNA. Why must the President of the Council be a prime minister?
Mr Reinfeldt, you should rather seek out the person who can best represent moral authority, who can be the broker of agreements in Europe. In order to do this, we have given you a tool, Mr Reinfeldt: it is the fact that the election of this President of the Council does not have to be unanimous, but may be by qualified majority.
Therefore, consensus is desirable, if it is possible; if not, use the qualified majority to seek out the best President of the Council."@en1
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"The Old Man and the Sea,"1
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