Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-14-Speech-3-011-000"
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"en.20111214.5.3-011-000"2
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"Mr President, honourable Members, six months have passed since we met at the beginning of the Polish Presidency. On that occasion, I gave an assurance of the great importance which Poles attach, and which I personally attach, to the idea of a united Europe. I declared our attachment to the European Union, conscious of the fact that we were assuming the Presidency during a profound crisis. Not just a financial crisis, but – as we could already see then – also a crisis of confidence; while today, and I think we ought to say this unequivocally, it is perhaps also a crisis affecting our politics and the way we are governed.
We may not accept the decisions of politicians of one or another country, but we must not make a public display of delight that the distance between the Member States is growing before our eyes – in this case, the distance between the United Kingdom and the European Union. However, I would also like to say that other comments have also been made, such as that one capital has won against other capitals. We know that Europe, not only during the current crisis, but also for the future, needs strong political leadership. At the last European Council meeting, and over the last six months, I have witnessed this great European dispute, which has not yet been given a specific title: is the political leadership of Europe going to be the result of cut-throat competition between nation-states, and is the result of this competition going to be the domination of one, two or three capitals over the others, or, on the contrary, is the political leadership of Europe going to be the leadership of the Union and is it going to be working for the good of the whole Union? It is very important that we should be able to sum up each further meeting with the conviction that the Union has won against egoism, and not that someone has won against someone else in a disintegrating Union.
I would also like to say after these six months that Europe needs to examine its conscience together. We must not point the finger today and say: ‘there is the source of the crisis’ or ‘oh, it is that poor country in the south which has made problems for all the rest of us’. We also need a shared responsibility for the future. Northern Europe, which boasts about its discipline, must also come to a better understanding of the need for solidarity. Southern Europe must also understand that shared responsibility also means more discipline. We also have to say very clearly that the source of the crisis, not only the financial crisis, but also the political crisis, is to be found in breaches of our mutual obligations, including those which result from the Treaties, and that these breaches are not a question of the last few months. We should all examine our consciences. Each one of us should think about when we started to violate what had been agreed under the Maastricht Treaty. Each of us should think about whether we are really ready to uphold the Schengen arrangements.
We who are supporters of a truly integrated European Union have to say very clearly today that we need greater determination to protect the foundations of Europe, and not constant discussion of revision of these foundations. Therefore, I would like to conclude the Polish Presidency with an appeal to all the leaders of Europe without exception to undertake this effort to strengthen the Union, starting with themselves, and not to look for a way to break up, exclude or divide Europe. So today, let us say this yet again: we are for integration and against disintegration.
We are against divisions into better and worse, and we want to see increasing political unity in Europe. We are for responsibility, shared responsibility, in the face of selfish irresponsibility. We are against exclusions, because the Union must also be based on solidarity at times when some of us are in a worse situation and others are in a better situation. We need genuine political leadership, because Europe deserves prompt decisions – decisions about the immediate financial crisis, but also about the future. The crisis has proved to be a great test of the EU’s fitness. We have to start a serious debate about greater political fitness for Europe. Other crises and other conflicts will arise in the future. This crisis has shown us – and it is indeed a good thing that this has happened – that the European Union does not always react quickly, because there is a lack of trust – so fundamental a factor – in the institutions we have established. We cannot allow this leadership to be a leadership of one, two or three Member States, not even the strongest of them. Neither can it be a leadership of technocrats, because they do not have a democratic mandate. This leadership has to be political in nature, it has to have a democratic mandate, and it has to be accepted by all, in order to be able to force everyone to meet their responsibilities. It has to be a leadership based on the European institutions.
I would like to say that just as we need swift decisions in the next few hours, days and weeks to rescue the euro and stabilise the euro area, we also need honest and intensive discussion about a new political system for Europe. Not everyone accepts the EU order and we must not pretend any longer – today we do not know how to enforce the rules which we ourselves once set. Today, when it is convenient for us, we evade the responsibilities which the Treaties lay on us. So let us be honest with ourselves: we need a very profound and serious debate about a political system for Europe which will give us EU-based leadership. Therefore, the motto of our Presidency, ‘More Europe in Europe’, does, in fact, also have a political aspect. I think that the European Parliament is exactly the right place for this, and you should not allow anyone to deprive it of this clear historic and political mandate. This is the place that should become Europe’s constituent assembly. Nothing will be the same as it was before the crisis.
Despite the fact that we were making our debut in the role of the Presidency, and perhaps precisely because of this, ours has been a Presidency of people determined to carry out their European assignment as well as we can. It is not just goodwill that we have invested in this Presidency, but also the efforts and the abilities of the hundreds of young Poles who have worked here in Strasbourg, in Brussels, in Warsaw and in many other places across Europe, and we have taken up the tasks – mindful of our limitations – which are the routine duty of every Presidency, including work on legislative matters. I will not give a list of everything we have done over these last six months.
The status quo from before the crisis is out of the question. It is certain that Europe will be different after the crisis. The question is only will it be divided or will it be more integrated? It certainly will not be the same. It is you who have the democratic mandate and you, I think, should take on this great responsibility, this great challenge, and therefore the European Parliament should become the modern constituent assembly for this re-emerging Europe – because another Europe, a new Europe, is emerging as we watch. Let us do everything for it to become a united Europe, not a divided Europe.
This profound reflection must not be window dressing, as has been the case in the past. We have had groups of ‘Wise Men’, we have had task groups and committees. Everyone knew this reflection had to be carried out to prepare for the future, but the framework of a new political order has never come into being, and the crisis has made this fully and very forcibly clear. It is not a matter of thousands and tens of thousands of new pieces of legislation; it is about restoring the balance between what belongs to the realm of the Member States and what belongs to that of the Union, and of rebuilding trust based on a number of clear rules – rules which we all accept and which we are able to enforce in the case of those who want to break them. This is a crucial task, and I think it also falls to the European Parliament as the modern constituent assembly which is building the framework of a new political order. It is not a matter of frightening each other – the crisis is frightening people enough already – but if we do not succeed in this task, future generations will curse not only the crisis, but us too. Either today we take up the struggle for the Europe of the future, or tomorrow we grieve for the Europe we have now. Thank you.
I have heard many warm words in the last few days about our commitment and the effectiveness of our work. This may not sound very modest, but I do think the Poles have earned this praise, and they have done so precisely because it was with a belief in the reason for having a united Europe that they took on the challenges which fell to the Polish Presidency. Whether this was work on the ‘six-pack’, the accession of Croatia, the Eastern Partnership, energy security or other legislation, such as the single European patent, in all of these areas we have managed to achieve what we undertook to do and to complete our work. It was mainly because the Polish Presidency has been led by people who really do treat Europe seriously as a community and who – in spite of the crisis, or perhaps I should put that the other way round, precisely because we have been hit by the crisis, including the crisis of confidence – wanted to show that the responsibilities which rest with Europeans at such a time mean their commitment should be even more clear and unwavering.
I want to say that I would like to turn this review into a serious reflection in a political sense, a reflection which is the fruit of these six months of experience of the Polish Presidency, but I am sure that you, too, have reached similar conclusions and have a similar need to talk frankly about what is happening in Europe at the moment. This is because in spite of my satisfaction with the work which has been accomplished, I cannot say that Europe at the end of 2011 is a Europe which is more united than it was six months, a year or five years ago. Today, at the close of the Polish Presidency, I cannot say we have succeeded together in averting what may, in fact, be the most serious crisis to have afflicted our continent in the history of the united Europe. In fact, I would say quite the contrary. Today, we have to say very openly that we are at a parting of the ways. We face a very serious choice: during this crisis, and in looking for ways and means to exit the crisis, should we take the Community approach, and are we going to search for a European way to lift ourselves out of the crisis, or should we take the route of national and state egoism, looking selfishly for a way out on our own and considering the Union to be a burden rather than the best way for Europeans to overcome the crisis?
I want to remind you that the real source of the crisis, the financial crisis, was not the EU institutions. It was not in the European Parliament, the European Commission or other EU institutions that the crisis was born. European integration is not the source of the financial crisis, and so it is not the source of the political crisis either. These six months have shown with full force that it is exactly the opposite – that the crisis is feeding and growing fat on the threat of the Union falling apart, and that if today we cannot say we have succeeded in managing the crisis, it is because when responding to the crisis, Europe has not always acted as a community.
Why are we also talking about a political crisis today? It is because too many people in Europe, too many politicians in Europe, want to persuade us and to persuade Europe that the way out of the crisis is to abandon our work together as a community. I would like to say, however, that in my opinion, and in that of the Polish Presidency, this is a symptom of a kind of illness. The current crisis is undermining the sense of community. If we are hearing opinions in Europe today about how we need to reconsider the bases and the foundations of the Union, this is very clearly a symptom that the crisis exists not just in our banks, but also in our hearts. The last European Council meeting showed very clearly that some of us are searching for tools not only to rescue the euro, but also, in the long term, to strengthen the Union, but that there are others who think that the way to rescue the euro or the financial situation of the Member States and the institutions is a relaxation of the Union, and its eventual destruction. I am not accusing anyone, because these are points of view which are equally entitled to exist. We are all entitled to have our own vision for the future of Europe, but we cannot hide the fact that today, somewhere beneath the surface, there is in fact now a debate going on not about the future of the euro, but about the future of the Union.
At the last European Council meeting, we made decisions which are only a first step. Both in Brussels and in my own country, I have tried to persuade everyone that if we are not fully satisfied with this summit, it is because we have only taken a single step, and that we still continue to lack the single-minded determination necessary to take the next steps quickly and decisively acting as the Union and for the Union. When I hear some of the comments which are being made – they are, I am sure, being made in good faith, I am not accusing anyone of ill will – but when I hear comments full of satisfaction that Great Britain has become an island again and that the English Channel has suddenly become wider in comparison to several weeks ago, I have to say frankly that I do not understand this satisfaction."@en1
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