Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-18-Speech-2-075-000"
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"en.20110118.6.2-075-000"2
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"Mr President, I propose that we debate the Hungarian Presidency tomorrow. We should keep matters separate, or else Prime Minister Leterme will have to comment on the new media law in Hungary, and I do not believe that that is his responsibility.
The role of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, is to pass and monitor legislation, which therefore means being critical when things go wrong, when things are in a bad state, but also giving praise when things actually turn out well. We could say that the Belgian Presidency has been good, very good, and that it has been a success thanks to the efforts of many people: the Belgian Government, but also many diplomats, the Permanent Representative, the Deputy Permanent Representative and all those who have worked every day to make it a success.
It was a success which no one foresaw, because, Mr Prime Minister, all of us were constantly confronted with the following question from our constituents: how can a caretaker government make for a successful Presidency? In my view, it was the first time that we had ever had a real European government, because it was a government which concerned itself only with European affairs and European issues, and which was not distracted by the affairs of its members’ own nations.
This is almost an invitation to other governments to be caretaker governments when they take over the Presidency of the European Union, so that they can concentrate on Europe for six months instead of occasionally squeezing it in between other issues.
I think that the Belgian Presidency was successful mainly for one reason (look at the financial supervision, the hedge funds, the rating agencies): because this Presidency understood that, under the new Treaty, we need to be working towards ‘more Europe’ and because it pushed for ‘more Europe’ in the Council. That cannot be said of all presidencies. Jean-Luc Dehaene is right when he says that there are, indeed, a number of Member States that still do not understand that the ground rules have changed.
The ground rules have changed and the Belgian Presidency is the first to have grasped that that is the case. If we have ended up with an arrangement for European supervision whereby the objectives of the European Parliament have finally been attained, then that is because the Belgian Presidency told our colleagues in the Council: ‘That will not work, it has to be a European solution’, unlike the solution developed by the finance ministers in December 2009.
I would say the same about the European patent. Now, that was a major breakthrough, Mr President. I would call on you and all other members to give the green light for that patent to the European Parliament very soon, so that, after more than 20 years, the European patent can finally become a reality."@en1
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