Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-23-Speech-2-231"
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"en.20030923.5.2-231"2
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"Madam President, as the day draws to a close, I would like to thank the Commissioners and Members of Parliament who have taken part in the debate and reflect briefly on what has been said.
This is clearly a constituent phase and, not least in the new Constitution, for instance, the European Parliament will be given wider, more extensive powers. This is a welcome, inevitable, historical fact, and we have, without a doubt, given fresh impetus to the process which will certainly give the European Parliament greater autonomy, more clout and greater representativeness in the near future.
That said, we must focus for a moment on the points made during the debate. Without mentioning any one issue in particular, I would like to stress that the Council is quite prepared to look at all the recommendations made. Moreover, it must be said that, even in the introductory report and in the meetings which have taken place thus far on all the issues – including that of the availability of new posts for Commission staff and other matters such as the cut in preaccession funds and so forth – the Council has been completely open to reassessing the proposals on the basis of new approaches, new information and new decisions.
I would therefore like to say a word in defence of the Council – which has been somewhat ill-treated, so to speak, by some of the Members in their speeches – and explain that, in cases such as this, the Council has the task of seeking to realise and harmonise many different expectations. Since the European budget is, of necessity, the result of prioritising and compromise, it is not always possible to say ‘yes’ to everybody immediately. For precisely this reason, I would ask the Members not to make the mistake of attempting to criticise the intentions of others, for we all have the right to criticise our own intentions but, above all, we have a duty to display full confidence in others. I believe that this is one of the principles of democracy, of our political culture, and I believe it is a principle that we all share. It is precisely because we do have shared cultural models, because we believe in a united Europe, that we realise that there is a great difference between the management of power and politics. Politics is the management of power harmonised according to a cultural model. I believe that our shared cultural models will help us to achieve an excellent result at the next reading."@en1
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