Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-018"

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"Mr President, today, the Commission is presenting us with a communication on its annual policy strategy, with regard to which I would like to make several comments. First of all, with regard to the form: the very first paragraph states, and I quote: ‘The Annual Policy Strategy adopted by the Commission […] seeks to define the Commission's policy priorities and ensure that there is the right match between policy initiatives and the corresponding resources’. This phrase could give the wrong impression. It leads us to believe that the Commission is a government adopting its policy strategy. This is not the case: this communication is merely a proposal which must, one way or another, be adopted by the Council, which is the only body with the power, under Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, to provide the Union with its political impetus. I would also note that the Council is not present today, and I do not know what conclusion to draw from this absence. Secondly, the right priorities have been chosen, but it is possible to infer a difference in approach between the first, enlargement and the working of the European Union, and the second, border stability. Within the Union, including old and new Members, there is a kind of Community fundamentalism; in relations with neighbouring countries, however, flexibility and variable geometry allow the implementation of differentiated frameworks for cooperation. It seems to us that flexibility should be present in all cases. President Prodi has just repeated yet again that, in a Europe with 25 States, we would have to abolish unanimous decisions and generalise qualified majority voting. Our opinion is that qualified majority voting will not work either if we do not also accept the right of veto for national parliaments and variable geometry."@en1

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