Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-19-Speech-3-022"

PredicateValue (sorted: default)
rdf:type
dcterms:Date
dcterms:Is Part Of
dcterms:Language
lpv:document identification number
"en.20031119.1.3-022"2
lpv:hasSubsequent
lpv:speaker
lpv:spokenAs
lpv:translated text
"Mr President, the meeting of Foreign Ministers of the IGC, held on 18 November, has in particular dealt with a very important problem which the Convention had never really discussed: the revision clauses of the draft European Constitution. Some people have proposed a move towards reducing the obligation for unanimity in the case of certain revisions, in particular that relating to the third part of the draft, which relates to the Union’s policies. Those revisions are unacceptable to the majority because they would impose changes to the constitutional act on minority peoples. Unanimity must be conserved and differentiated cooperation must respond to any possible situations of deadlock. I would stress also that this third part contains essential provisions; that it has hardly been looked at by the Convention and that the Intergovernmental Conference looks likely to take the same route. All of this demonstrates well that this huge ambition to rewrite all the Treaties in one go risks leading to the endorsement of contested policies without real democratic debate. The meeting of Foreign Ministers has also examined the numerous clauses, specific or general, of which there are many in the draft. We reject these clauses that seek to bypass the official review procedure, which will rule the national parliaments out of the procedure and will make it even less transparent in the eyes of the citizens. Clearly, things would be different if each national parliament considered separately, or each population by means of a referendum, had the formal right to opposition. Mr President, this new revision of the Treaties should have been aimed at resolving the democratic deficit, at bringing Europe closer to the citizens and re-evaluating the role of the national parliaments. The Intergovernmental Conference is taking this approach, since it is likely to accept the Convention’s draft in its entirety, which does not deal with the real problem of democracy and which moves Europe further away from its people. We would appeal to it to put this right: there is still time before the compromise of 28 November."@en1
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata

Named graphs describing this resource:

1http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/English.ttl.gz
2http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/Events_and_structure.ttl.gz
3http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/spokenAs.ttl.gz

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph