Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-22-Speech-3-052"
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"en.20031022.2.3-052"2
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"Mr President, the report by the Council starts with a short paragraph on the Constitutional Treaty. There is evidently little progress to report on that score. What we hear is in any case not so positive in a few respects. It appears difficult to enlarge first and only then to focus on depth. We had anticipated this all along.
The increasing fixation on the ideal of what is termed national sovereignty and national interest sparks proposals that are mainly focused on the question as to how we can frustrate the decision-making process in Europe. This is the central idea of most of the attempts to change the outcome of the Convention. Some want to maintain veto rights, while others want to reduce the blocking minority and yet others want to structure the Commission in such a way that all objections related to the Council decision-making process return to the Commission. This would render the Commission a weakened body of national prejudice.
Finally, with reference to what Mr Karas stated, we are facing all these national referendums which, together, form a very undemocratic decision-making tool, because one small majority in one country can cause the whole of Europe to grind to a halt. If that is democracy, then I do not know. All of this is at odds with the intentions of the founders of European integration. They succeeded in starting this gigantic innovation because of a broad European vision. Had they remained stuck in a mosaic of small-minded, national interests, then Europe would have remained a platform for power games, violent or not, as the case may be. We must continue to call a spade a spade. A Commissioner who fails to prioritise the European interest but represents his own national interests is a corrupt Commissioner who must be brought down. Parliament should not be reduced to a collection of errand boys of Member State governments. After all, we are the direct representatives of the European citizens. It is unfortunate that in some new Member States, leading personalities do not, for demagogic reasons, distinguish between the roles of Brussels and of Soviet Moscow. It is very obvious where the differences lie: participation, free will, and so on. When we were faced with the choice of a free trade zone, personalities of that ilk always emphatically rejected that alternative. We hope that the enlargement, which for a long time was our fondest wish, will considerably reinforce the European idea, for that is its objective."@en1
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