Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-210"
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"en.19991117.7.3-210"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to publicly thank my co-rapporteur, Mr Jo Leinen, for his cooperation. I believe that the report you have in front of you reflects two things in particular. Firstly, this report is an attempt to condense a range of views of a large majority, not only of Parliament, but of all European citizens, and secondly, it shows how the European Parliament invariably aims to play, and does indeed play, a role in taking big decisions and in procedures to further improve the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that the next Intergovernmental Conference will become directly involved in perhaps the greatest challenge facing the European Union, i.e. enlargement. Amongst other things, this means that the Intergovernmental Conference must aim to improve the institutions, the way in which they function and the European Union’s policies, before we can allow new members in.
This particularly difficult process means that the next Intergovernmental Conference must proceed on a two-tier basis. The first tier, which I shall not say anything about since, when we divided up responsibilities, Mr Leinen assumed responsibility for that, concerns how we should introduce institutional reforms, how far we need to go with the reforms and what the actual goals of these reforms are. The second tier concerns the equally important issue of European Union policies. The European Union is having to cope with an increasingly wide range of topics on a daily basis – topics which are particularly important for the citizens of the Union. Clearly, it would be very difficult in the limited time we have to address them one by one in a parliamentary discussion.
Therefore, the first issue the conference should address as regards policies is the external representation of the European Union. This is an issue which has quite rightly concerned us on many occasions. It is therefore necessary for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to aim to improve those policies which lead to a more unified European policy on security and defence. The second issue to be addressed, which is also an important one, concerns the future of Europe on a global scale. It is quite similar but it has an added dimension involving external economic relations, an issue which we have been discussing a great deal. The third issue, together with the economy, is that of a “Social Europe”. It would be tragic if we forged ahead with developing European Union policies without giving consideration to such an important area which encompasses the bread and butter concerns of European citizens.
Mr President, in such a report, we found it neither feasible nor necessary to introduce concrete political proposals. These proposals do exist but this report is more to do with the agenda of the IGC and how it should be followed, and contains a very specific proposal from the point of view of Parliament. For this reason, I am calling on you to vote in favour of the report."@en1
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