Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-16-Speech-2-019"
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"en.20031216.1.2-019"2
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"Mr President, I think it is impossible not to see that we are faced with a setback. The problem happens to be knowing what kind of setback it is. I believe it is the defeat of the construction that you have chosen. Whom do I mean by ‘you’? The Italian Presidency, the Treaty Convention and the IGC. You have reduced the conflict that Europe is experiencing to a clash over the political aspect of Europe – whether it should be as much as possible or as little as necessary – in short, a clash between Europhiles and Eurosceptics. By doing so you are obscuring the real conflict and the drama of the choices Europe is being called upon to make. You have thus stayed within the same real model and have called this conflict – which is over who should make decisions and how – a model when it is not, distancing yourselves even further from the peoples of Europe. The model is, in fact, a social model of a political construction: it is its international aspect. You have chosen to constitutionalise the market at a time when neo-liberalism is failing and, although you prefer peace, you have considered war possible, in these terrible times when the world is racked by wars and terrorism.
The uncritical alignment with the Atlantic framework negates any ambition for an independent Europe. You did not choose the ambition of a model but settled for an accommodation and for staying afloat, which in practice has proved to be a framework of shifting sands, which has exalted the power struggle between powers and between countries. That is how the construction was blown apart.
It would be good if you at least did not deny your failure, as the Italian Prime Minister has done. The chairman of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party used the word in all its harshness. Mr Prodi has, I think, also recognised this, but I believe he is wrong in thinking that a solution will come from setting store by the Convention. In fact, I think the answer will be to stop pursuing a mistaken path which, if we continue along it, will lead to the ultimate crisis of Europe.
We shall have to make a new start, then, but from what point? The first point is one of method: from a different relationship with the peoples, movements and democratic public opinion of Europe. The second is one of substance. There are three core issues facing us: the economy, social conditions and the international aspect, and these are inescapable. There is not just yesterday’s failure; there is also the Maastricht crisis, the paradigm for a Europe of markets.
Europe, as the President-in-Office has said, is caught between the political process in the United States, where the dollar favours their competitiveness, and the aggressiveness of economies like China’s. In this situation, the IGC response is not at all convincing, positioned as it is between a bastard Keynesian view and an attack on the social conditions of the workers. Mr President, what really needs attention is the rights of the workers and the peoples. If we do not make a new start based on this reality, Europe can have no future."@en1
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