Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-12-Speech-3-049"
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"en.20000412.2.3-049"2
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"Mr President, in our view the European Parliament’s proposals for the Intergovernmental Conference, as set out in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, are a misinterpretation.
What we urgently need today, on the eve of enlargement, is not to deepen the integration of the existing Member States at a faster rate. It is not to trot out the old federalist recipes of the European Movement yet again. It is not to propose a super-State again, with its own constitution, uniform rules and majority decisions. No, what we urgently need today, ladies and gentlemen, is to show some evidence of clear-headedness, to accept that economic and political integration cannot be taken any further and to design new forms of cooperation that are far freer, and that will enable 30 or more States to work together on a basis of mutual respect.
Unfortunately, it would seem that the latest debates within the most well-informed groups of society stop at the doors of this Parliament. In this matter, as in the case of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, our Parliament seems unable to depart from the federalist line it has been pursuing for many years. That approach leads to an impasse, to what Mr Tsatsos a moment ago, if I understood him rightly, called a Europe built on sand.
First of all, it takes us away from the concept of Europe as an association of states, an association of national democracies, and puts all the countries, great or small, that are afraid of being marginalised on the defensive. More generally, the rigid federalist approach reflects a more or less unconscious desire to set up institutional barriers against enlargement, which will once again call in question a whole range of long-standing patterns of behaviour.
We must adopt a more positive approach. We must promote enlargement by adopting a new form of cooperation that is more differentiated, shows greater respect for national sovereignty, that is based on full recognition of the Luxembourg compromise, as I explained in the minority opinion attached to the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report."@en1
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