Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-16-Speech-2-031"
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"en.20031216.1.2-031"2
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"Mr President, it is clear from the debate here this morning and in yesterday's discussion in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs that Parliament is divided into two camps.
The two camps are the optimists and the pessimists. The pessimists point out that we are in a major crisis, perhaps, I have heard it said, the biggest since the rejection of the EDC Treaty in 1954. The optimists say no, because 95% of the draft Constitution has not been challenged and has virtually been agreed though I would like to see the text of the final versions of these articles that have virtually been agreed at the IGC. There is just one key subject left to argue about and settle. It concerns the voting system within one of the institutions. We can still do this. After all, on the original timetable nobody had originally thought we would finish before Christmas, so there is nothing to panic about. It can all be resolved in due course.
Which of these two views is right? I tend to be an optimist by nature, but I am a cautious optimist. We can salvage this IGC but it will need us all and the Member States in the IGC especially to be focused: focused on the remaining issues that need to be settled and attentive to solving them sooner, rather than later. If we take too long, there is a risk of reopening the debate on virtually every article in the draft Constitution. That above all must be avoided. We must focus on the points that remain. We must ask the Irish presidency to tear up its original plans and timetable for its presidency and focus first and foremost on this.
It is true that business as usual can go on to a degree on the basis of the old Constitution, namely the various treaties that we have, but these treaties are not satisfactory. They need updating, they need streamlining. They need modernising. We need the new Constitution. The Irish presidency must not just carry on, business as usual. It must focus on getting a result on this as soon as possible."@en1
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