Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-05-Speech-4-038"
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"en.20021205.2.4-038"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Commission has today presented the Commission’s draft Constitution, or rather, I would say, his draft Constitution. He himself and other Members have mentioned the name of Jean Monnet. Now, I believe that there is a fundamental difference between Jean Monnet’s work and the proposal before us today. In my view, Jean Monnet always endeavoured to focus on the essentials and to achieve the – albeit modest, sometimes even miniscule – goals he set, and, in 40 years, many of his proposals have genuinely been brought to fruition. Now, with regard to this proposal, over and above the acclaim it will certainly receive in the media
and its success throughout most of this House, I genuinely wonder, without wanting to be antagonistic, how many of these proposals will actually be carried through, as would have happened when Jean Monnet was at the helm. There are some differences between the two cases, I feel.
Why do I say that? Of course, it is lovely to be able to say ‘What good proposals the Commission is putting forward on many points, with codecision for these matters, a different procedures for others ...’ but, clearly, all this must actually work in practice, and I therefore wonder whether the present Commission, the Prodi Commission, as opposed to the Commissions which preceded it and contributed to Maastricht, the Single Act and so on, will have the same ability to succeed. We will see in the coming days. I wish President Prodi and his proposals every success, although, frankly, Mr Prodi, I want to make it clear that what concerns me, what concerns us, the Radical Members, what I personally consider to be the Achilles’ heel of this proposal and would alone weaken it considerably, is the question of the President being elected by two thirds of the Members of the House. That means that all it would take is for the Mr Poetterings and the Mr Barón Crespos of the future to meet in private and ..."@en1
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