Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-01-15-Speech-2-391-000"
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"en.20130115.26.2-391-000"2
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"Mr President and Mr Chancellor, thank you very much for joining us here today, although I feel that I must apologise on behalf of the Chamber for Mr Verhofstadt spending no time whatsoever speaking about the speech that you actually made, and instead spending all of his time talking about a speech that he has not even heard yet from David Cameron. But I suppose that this is typical of what we should expect from the Liberals, talking about something that has not even happened. However, to be fair to him he is improving.
I never thought I would hear the day when Mr Verhofstadt approvingly quoted Margaret Thatcher in this Chamber, but I will send you my book of Margaret Thatcher quotations for some future pearls of wisdom. It is vital that we do have a serious debate about the future of Europe; a debate in which the full scale of Europe’s crisis should be addressed. This is not just about fixing the euro, which is of course very important. It is about recognising that, in a global marketplace, Europe faces ever greater challenges that threaten our long-term future.
It is about understanding that public opinion across the continent is increasingly alarmed at Europe’s direction. It is just not good enough, as a number of speakers have done, to dismiss people’s concerns as ignorant or – our favourite word in this Chamber – populist. If the people have stopped trusting the EU, it is because many in this Chamber and the EU seem to have stopped trusting the people themselves and that is an attitude that, in my view, has to change.
I think we need a new direction for Europe; I think we need to articulate a modern message setting out a new vision for Europe. We want to see European cooperation succeed, but this will require radical change in how we think and how we operate, because today the EU stands at a crossroads. As the columnist Clive Crook recently wrote, the European project is in trouble because the model of a single, ever-closer union has now moved so far away from the reality of what people want and what economies can stand. That is why the EU needs a new model, not of inward-looking, ever-closer union, but a union of flexibility and of practicality.
So how can we achieve this? Well, firstly we can respond to the crisis by opening our markets, by freeing enterprise from the dead hand of the state. We can address the democratic deficit if we recognise that the nation state is not an outdated concept, as many believe in this House, but the building block of legitimate government. We can take a practical, commonsense approach to solving our common problems, rather than allowing ourselves to be driven by ideology. And here are a few places where we could start: a critical review of the entire Community acquis; slashing regulation that burdens our markets and businesses and costs thousands of jobs; a political drive to reinvigorate the single market through widening its scope and developing the digital economy; a thorough reprioritisation line-by-line of the EU budget that is focused on adding real value to European competitiveness, and a change in gear in our efforts to open trade with the USA, with India and other emerging economies where the growth in our world today is actually occurring, unlike in Europe.
These reforms will only be possible if we put an end to the mentality that, as politicians, we have the answers to everyone’s problems. In addition to Margaret Thatcher, I am particularly fond of paraphrasing Ronald Reagan: the ten most terrifying words in the English language are: I am from the EU and I am here to help. Often our good intentions have unintended consequences. We can make it harder for people to take responsibility for themselves or for businesses which deliver economic growth and employment. If Europe’s future is to be one of economic vibrancy, then we have to realise that often the best thing politicians can do is simply get out of the way.
The euro crisis has in fact broken the consensus that we can just continue with business as usual. We need a fresh start; we need a new model not an à la carte Europe, nor a Europe with first and second classes of membership but a flexible model, all converging around the single market to which every Member State can contribute according to their needs and interests. A Europe where all are equally valued and respected; a Union that is genuinely united in diversity."@en1
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