Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-15-Speech-2-027"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000215.3.2-027"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I greatly admire the openness with which you admit that the European Union must change fundamentally. You gave consideration to important questions of principle in your programme. I believe that the public will start to show more interest in politics if we can tackle the major issues alongside the day-to-day ones. At the same time, however, it has to be said that, unfortunately, your programme reminds me in many ways of a party manifesto. There are a lot of good intentions in it, but it very much lacks concrete proposals concerning how this can all be achieved. As in any other party manifesto, it is full of contradictions. I would like to take this opportunity to help you recognise them.
First let me speak about the economy and social development. We have to be able to think hard about how we can coordinate the aim of competitiveness with the aim of full employment; that is what was mentioned in your programme. Should we at long last be drafting convergence criteria, in which – as you in fact hint at in this programme – the aim would be that unemployment in no Member State should be higher than, say, the three most successful countries in this matter? Ecological tax reform is what my group would like to stress the importance of, because we can only create employment and sustainable development by changing our taxation structure. But, unfortunately, as we all know, this is an area where the European Union is totally unable to act. Do please raise this issue at the intergovernmental conference. The EU can only achieve authority in the fact that it focuses on tasks that individual countries cannot attend to alone. In this respect, Parliament will definitely defend, along with yourselves, the importance of supranational decision-making.
One contradiction within your programme relates to globalisation. I think it is very creditable that you should mention the concept of ‘global administration’, as others too have said here. However, please learn from the events of Seattle: we have to be able to combine the freedom in world trade, on the one hand, with all those values of human importance that we wish to defend, on the other. You must embark on a dialogue with the international community. Do please try to make the international organisations democratic. The European Union could be critically important in a process in which the United Nations and the WTO really do become subject to democratic monitoring. We can submit motions for this together with you.
Finally, I consider it a very positive sign that you speak so often about the civil society, although, unfortunately, this is another contradiction. You ought to also be able to draw conclusions at the IGC. We have to table motions proposing that our citizens might really have a direct impact on decision-making. What you just said is absolutely true: people want more engaged democracy. In my opinion, this is the only way if we want to gain the approval of the people with regard to Europe and their interest in Europe too."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples