Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-06-Speech-3-112"
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"en.20020206.5.3-112"2
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".
On the occasion of the debate on the Olsson report on the monitoring of the BSE crisis, I would like to draw attention to the scandalous decree handed down by the Court of Justice on 13 December 2001 which condemns France for having failed to observe the Commission’s request to lift the ban on British beef imports. The decree cites the higher powers of the Commission, which itself refers to the superiority of the freedom of movement.
This raises a question of principles – what sort of Europe do we want? A Europe where each nation has the right to exercise its fundamental choices, or a Europe where the Commission determines from on high what is the so-called common good? We believe that each nation must be sovereign. With regard to public health, in particular, if one of the Member States democratically chooses one option, the others must note the choice made, even if they do not agree with it.
We must stress that the French Government has put itself in an impossible situation, by ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam, which gives the Commission the powers that it is now using against us. When will governments realise that the texts that they sign will have some consequences? When will they realise that their actions will catch up with them? When will they stop pulling the wool over their own eyes, and over the eyes of the citizens at the same time?
In the wake of the decree of 13 December, there is no point in the French Government saying that it will not obey it, the Commission will not go to the trouble of complaining to the Court of Justice to request a penalty payment for each day that the French Government failed to execute the decision. We will therefore have to pay a ransom for having the right to use – and this is still on a provisional basis – a fundamental competence that we ourselves foolishly abandoned when we signed the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Of course, this absurd situation will only last the length of the election campaign in France. As soon as the elections are over, our next government will probably rush to obey the decree on the quiet. What we need is a fundamental reform of the Treaties in order to restore national sovereignty."@en1
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