Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-01-15-Speech-2-040"
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"en.20020115.1.2-040"2
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"President Cox, you have been elected by a majority. There are different voices at the bottom of the ballot box, and I would remind you of something. I know that, when a person belongs to a minority group – you belonged to a minority group for a long time, yourself – he gets used to offering advice to all and sundry. Well then, I remain faithful to your custom and am going to offer some advice to the President of this House, whose status far surpasses that of the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of a tiny little group. Therefore, I would draw your attention to the wisdom of an old rabbi. In difficult situations, when he was told that he had two options, he used to reply: ‘In that case, I choose the third.’
Mr President, today, you must forget who voted for you and who voted against you. You represent the institution that must work in the interests of the Community as a whole. You represent the European ideal, and it is this ideal that is being attacked by a politician from one of the families of those who voted against you: as chance would have it, coincidentally, Mr Haider, and, quite coincidentally again, of course, Mr Berlusconi. Your role is to act not in the interests of those who elected you but in the interests of Europe as a whole, irrespective of who voted for you or why.
This is what we expected from Mrs Fontaine and she almost always delivered. Moreover, I know that no-one will ever totally live up to the institution’s expectations. However, Mr Cox, there is a moral challenge before you, and that challenge is to free yourself from the enormous power of those who supported and voted for you. It will not be easy, and if you ever need independence or allies to defend the pluralist approach, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, both those Members who voted for you and those who did not, is at your disposal. Do not let yourself be pinned down by one or the other: uphold the freedom that comes from pluralism. That is your task as President."@en1
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