Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-03-Speech-1-062"
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"en.20000703.6.1-062"2
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"Madam President, my group also salutes the Portuguese Presidency's cooperation with the European Parliament and thanks it for this. As far as the results of the Feira summit are concerned, however, we are rather more sceptical. In recent weeks a debate has broken out between the governments of the Member States about the future of Europe, and even about having a constitution. In stark contrast to these competing visions, however, is the way in which preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference are shaping up. It even seems that the images of the distant future conjured up by a good many ministers are actually intended to conceal the European Council's inability to resolve the issues it has set itself. Since Maastricht this European Council has been putting off the problems, the unresolved questions and the necessary reforms. Many of these were already left unresolved in Amsterdam.
The public's confidence in the EU has now reached an all-time low in all the Member States. In eastern Europe frustration is growing at the EU's hesitant attitude. The real initiatives – highlighted by Parliament in all of its resolutions for years – are in some cases not even being discussed in the preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference. The most important objective is surely to create and develop a European democracy and to eliminate the democratic deficit. In Feira we did not see a decision to incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty, one of the decisions most eagerly anticipated by the people of Europe. An alternative approach to the Intergovernmental Conference, which this Parliament has repeatedly advocated, was not even mentioned. I think that, instead of making people want to enshrine the prevailing system in a future constitution, the European Council will have given everyone cause to consider the system's gross shortcomings, manifest in the current Intergovernmental Conference. A procedure for adopting a constitution has not been planned or launched; there is barely a definite notion of doing so. Questions remain about parliamentary and judicial control in the second and third pillars, as they do about the status of European parties and so on.
Neither are there any tangible plans for meeting the second challenge, to create a social dimension to European integration. I believe that all of this has serious consequences for the degree of acceptance of the EU by those on the inside and also for the expectations which the eastern European countries have of us. We still have a few more months, but the work will have to pick up speed and increase in gravity and depth at a much greater rate than we have seen so far!"@en1
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