Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-12-17-Speech-1-027"
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"A word of thanks here at the end of a six-month term of Presidency is certainly in order. Incidentally, concerning the Presidency, we have also included in the Laeken declaration the question of how we will handle it in the future when we have for example thirty or more Member States. I think that when it comes to starting a
we will have to say to our spouses and children “see you next month”. However, a sincere word of thanks is certainly called for.
My experience as President-in-Office of the European Council has taught me that people around the world look to Europe for a number of other things. We in Europe have more experience in channelling complex political conflicts. We are more aware of the importance of military might, but also of the fact that military might can only be a first step towards political and humanitarian solutions. We have a keener eye for social and environmental problems and we are more open, thanks to the lessons of our own past, to political cooperation in the world. We view globalisation not merely as an economic process against which no political opposition should be developed.
Are we then – and this is a question I would like to ask in conclusion of my mediation and in closing the Presidency, although there remain a few things to be done in the next few days – are we then as Europe, not better placed to forge the kind of new order craved by the world? Why should Europe not strive to gain the profile of a powerful continent, which is also prepared to share that power with others? A continent with a strong economy, true, but also with a traditional proclivity to help those weaker than ourselves? A continent with a strong European fighting force, which must yet be created, but also embedded in a panoply of humanitarian, diplomatic and legislative instruments? A rich continent, but with the awareness that such wealth will remain fragile while extreme poverty continues to exist in large parts of the world, not least in the African continent where we bear a heavy historical responsibility?
That European superpower with its own diversity, able to stand side by side with another superpower in the world, is still, of course, only a dream. But I see the first signs of this, and those signs are that the old ideological standoffs have dissipated, as have automatic national enmities. Prosperity found its way to Western Europe after World War II and now, in the wake of the Cold War, is finding its way to Central and Eastern Europe.
Our European Union is slowly taking shape – and this is important – without eroding the wealth of cultural diversity and traditions on our continent.
On a final note, building Europe is a truly great ambition, and I see it already and I repeat, it is in fact the greatest political dream of our era. With the Declaration of Laeken, I hope to have played a small part in seeing this dream come true.
The Belgian Presidency has always enjoyed the full support of the European Parliament and I am grateful to you all for that. Together, over the last six months, we have done an enormous amount of legislative work. A great deal of time and energy has been spent on the co-decision procedures between the Council and Parliament, but I believe that this time and energy were well spent. In many areas, we have been able to take decisions, overcome difficulties and adopt legislation. I am thinking of course of the agreements on the telecom package, food safety, safety in the aviation sector, and the directive on working times for road transport. I believe I can safely say that we succeeded in giving the relations between the Presidency and the European Parliament a political dimension, which perhaps heretofore had too technical a dimension.
We did not shy away from that discussion. On the contrary, we systematically sought out debate with the European Parliament as a means for progress. Coordination between Council and Parliament went extremely well and I think you will agree that the Belgium’s various Presidents-in-Office of the Council made a special effort to be available to the European Parliament.
I have learned a great deal from the many trips I have undertaken since 11 September, mostly accompanied by Romano Prodi and with Javier Solana, and the dialogue with the alternative globalists, especially concerning the Union’s place in the world. Anyone to whom a connection between all these things starts to become clear will uncover not a dreary, colourless Europe, but the most fascinating project of our age.
The date of 11 September marked the globalisation of terrorism. The attacks in New York and Washington taught us that we simply cannot afford to leave the poorest countries in the world to their fate, since they will then literally be hijacked by terrorists, drug barons, gangsters, in a word: scum.
But what are we actually doing about it? Simply globalising the free market and thinking that the matter is thus resolved does not help. The further impoverishment of the poorest nations shows clearly that this remedy can even have the opposite effect. If you are abroad a lot and hold discussions with alternative globalists, it suddenly dawns on you that the European Union has for years had a home-grown solution, a recipe for prosperity that has been successively applied to Greece, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. When combined with each other, free trade, international cooperation and reciprocal financial support appear able to create powerful impetus towards added prosperity, as we have witnessed in our Union over the decades.
In this context, the grumbling and often the anxiety surrounding the enlargement of the Union become highly relative. If in the future, perhaps seven years from now, we bring to this Parliament the Romanian or Bulgarians with their average income a seventh of what a German or a Dutchman earns, will we not have undertaken the greatest social project of our generation? If we bring about that enlargement, we are in fact engaged in the stabilisation of countries that might otherwise fall prey to a dictatorship or a society solely geared to generating profits, a situation such as we have seen in Serbia and Albania.
Everything is interlinked. If we can shortly make the accession of ten new Members just as successful as the previous enlargement incorporating southern Europe, then we will have established a model, a proven method with which we can also bridge the North-South divide, the biggest conflict of our time.
Indeed, that is what the world expects of us Europeans. Admittedly, we lack the sharp profile of the United States of America: a superpower, a dominant culture, a country of free initiative and freedom of expression, the champion of technological innovation. We in Europe certainly have a great deal to learn from the United States in terms of technological development, military might and often economic efficiency. But does this mean we have to run after the United States of America?"@en1
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