Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-15-Speech-4-036"
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"en.20000615.2.4-036"2
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"Mr President, the forthcoming European Council in Feira will mark the end of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union. As a Portuguese national and a European, no one more than I hopes that this summit will achieve positive results which can take Europe forward and show the merit of the rotating presidency, whatever the demographic and economic weight of each country. This is the very spirit of the European Union and it is only with this spirit that Europe will remain united. There cannot be first or second rate countries or people. Everyone is equal in the Union, in both their rights and duties.
Therefore, as a Portuguese national and a European, I am looking very expectantly to the Feira European Council to ensure that this summit is not just an obligation in the calendar or a transition point. I have two specific hopes, which are also requirements, obligations and duties, for the assessment to be made of the Portuguese Presidency. Firstly, we hope that the Feira European Council can definitively end the Austrian question otherwise this issue will remain a cloud over the Portuguese Presidency. We do not understand why the President-in-Office has allowed confusion to arise between his institutional position as President of the European Union and his role as spokesperson for the bilateral decisions of 14 Member States against one. If there is one person responsible for this issue it is the President of the European Union who must now correct his error. He must rectify what could have been avoided. The Portuguese Presidency assumed a special responsibility in this issue and we hope that it will solve the problem at the Feira European Council so that this does not become a sore point within the European Union. The longer it takes to resolve this issue, the more difficult it will become to resolve.
Secondly, we hope that the Feira European Council can produce a plan, an idea or a project for Europe for the next Intergovernmental Conference. We also hope that the Portuguese Presidency will be seen to have made a significant mark in this respect. A report or document is not enough. It does not take ministers to produce reports and documents summarising positions. This only needs officials to attend the meetings. We know that the work of the IGC will be drawn to a close by the French Presidency at the end of this year but it would surely be justified for ideas and projects to already exist which had the mark of the current Presidency. The idea that everything will be decided at the last minute seems too much a justification of a
policy and must be rejected immediately. This is even more worrying when everything is being discussed in public, without it being apparent whether these discussions are forms of pressure or academic debate. We therefore hope that the Feira European Council will produce not just a statement of positions but also a plan, a project or an idea on the changes to the Intergovernmental Conference."@en1
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