Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-18-Speech-3-016"
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"en.20030618.4.3-016"2
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"The next item is the extraordinary debate on the European Convention.
Iñigo Méndez de Vigo and Klaus Hänsch, let me congratulate you and the 30 colleagues from this House, along with President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, his vice-presidents and the other members of the Convention for a truly remarkable achievement. You have produced a draft Constitutional Treaty which is clear, which is balanced, which is based on a single option and which could work. The ultimate vindication, if one was needed, of Parliament's total belief in the Convention method an open, inclusive, participatory and democratic preparation for the Intergovernmental Conference.
The results of the Convention are also innovative. It was an operation which was originally conceived to address some of the business left over at Nice, and then broadened to answer a catalogue of questions from Laeken. The Convention has now produced a constitutional blueprint with a broad institutional balance.
The proposal represents a radical improvement on our existing Treaties – way beyond what many may have expected. The first reactions, as I have followed them in this House, have broadly endorsed the result of the Convention. I am aware that nobody in an exercise like this can be 100% satisfied. But no politics anywhere can please all the people all the time. I am sure everybody can think of various improvements to different Articles, but to draw up a balanced project for tomorrow's Europe to which have contributed 28 national parliaments, 28 governments, the European Commission and the European Parliament and to get, at the end, a coherent result is something which should not be minimised. It should not be lightly discarded or unbundled. Those who would seek to unravel the broad consensus which has been created would bear a political responsibility and risk a result that would tend towards the lowest common denominator, precisely the result which the Convention wished to avoid – and it ably managed to do so.
Some further work is required, and the Convention has expressed a wish to complete its work on parts 3 and 4 of the Constitutional Treaty in the first two weeks of July. I hope the Convention will be authorised to proceed in this way, in particular as regards the part 3 of the Treaty on the policies of the Union. We hope that the Convention will find the means to avoid gridlock on European Union decision-making, through excessive reliance on the veto mechanism. In this way it will achieve coherence with the rest of the text which responds to the double challenge of enhanced democracy and greater efficiency.
The European Council is expected to convene an IGC later this year. I support the approach that the conference should be as short as possible and should conclude its work in good time for the 2004 European Parliamentary elections. I also strongly recommend that the Accession States should play a full and equal role in the IGC.
I intend to ask the European Council in Thessaloniki to consider how best to associate the European Parliament with the working of the IGC. There is widespread recognition that in previous IGCs European Parliamentary participation played an important and constructive role. It is in the logic of the progress, the participation and the shared ownership that has emerged from this Convention that the role of the Parliament should be enhanced in the dispositions that would be made for the next IGC.
Having the Treaty agreed well before the next European elections is essential. Our voters, the citizens, have the right to know what they are voting for, and what role the Parliament they elect is destined to play in the wider Europe of tomorrow. I also hope the new Treaty will contribute to making the next elections, along with the historic enlargement – although our sixth direct elections – our first real
elections.
I conclude, as I began, by congratulating our colleagues who contributed so effectively to the deliberations of the Convention; by acknowledging, on behalf of the European Parliament, our debt of gratitude to all the
and to the leadership of President Giscard d'Estaing. A sound basis is now available to the governments. The Convention has given its lead. We call now on the governments to give theirs."@en1
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"conventionnels"1
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