Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-18-Speech-2-076-000"
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"en.20110118.6.2-076-000"2
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"Mr President, as others have said before me, it is obviously true that, to date, Belgian political engineers have been better outside their borders than at home. In any case, I welcome this and I congratulate you. The Belgian team did a good job and this is a very good thing.
Moreover, I am of the opinion that the opposition you encountered in the different Councils in fact resembles the opposition we encounter in the Belgian debate: solidarity, transfers, all these issues relating to withdrawal or contribution are things that we are very familiar with in Belgium and that you encountered in the Council.
Furthermore, Mr Barroso, since you expressed your admiration and your acknowledgement, perhaps, at some time in the future, the European Union could give Belgium a nudge in the right direction or a bit of a helping hand. Since Belgium helped the European Union, perhaps the European Union could help Belgium to unblock its federal stalemate.
As for the rest, to come back to a few specific issues, Prime Minister, notably the issue of the budget, one has greater responsibility on leaving the Presidency than on entering it. Therefore, as regards the budget, my opinion is that we doubtless lacked boldness by not embracing the proposal for a convention we could have made on the financial resources, but the issue of own resources will be a central issue in the months ahead and I am very much counting on Belgium – which will recover, if you like, its freedom of speech, since it no longer represents all the Member States but speaks for itself – to take this matter forward.
The second important issue is the European constituency. It is something that will come before the Council at some time in the future. I know that, in Belgium, there are some who do not want a federal constituency, but I think that it is necessary, and perhaps it is precisely because they do not want it in Belgium that Belgium wants it at European level. A European constituency would be extremely useful in guaranteeing what you call the ‘soul’ of the European Union, i.e. the fact that, there, European citizens can, quite simply, consider themselves citizens who can vote for more than national representatives. I think it is a very important issue.
And the third issue, which has already been mentioned, is the Citizens’ Initiative. Here too, I am very much counting on Belgium to speed up the implementation process. It is an important instrument alongside all the economic governance reforms and I hope that Belgium may also contribute to moving the process forward more quickly and more strongly."@en1
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