Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-16-Speech-2-024"
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"en.20031216.1.2-024"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, over the weekend, I sometimes got the impression that we were discussing the rendezvous clauses rather than having a rendezvous with history, and that the reason why we did not come to any conclusion was that we were perhaps not aware of our responsibilities in all the areas. My great concern is now that everything is running through our fingers. When I contemplate the vast timescale, extending into 2005, I fear it will rob the Convention text of its momentum.
I believe that it is for this reason that, on two points, we have to make it clear what we do not want. I do not want a ‘core Europe’; instead, we should waste no time in resuming the attempt, with the Convention text, to get more of a constitution for a large-scale Europe with twenty-five Member States. Secondly, I do not want a compromise if it does not increase our capacity to act. Discussion of that brought the IGC down. There can be no compromise if, having got it, there is less transparency – the Legislative Council springs to mind – or less democracy, of which the Budget debate and Parliament’s budgetary rights provide us with examples.
Despite these criticisms, though, I would like to thank the Italian Presidency of the Council for having kept close to the Convention’s text throughout all these weeks and months and for actually keeping the commitment it made in respect of it. This is why the Convention text still stands; it is now for us to breathe new life into it. This being so, and in view of Mr Berlusconi’s statement that a number of formerly critical points – apparently 82 of them – had been satisfactorily dealt with in Brussels, it would make sense to hold fast to it if we are to maintain momentum. For this reason, I believe, the foreign ministers should meet together as early as January in order to consolidate what has been achieved. That, I believe will enable us to maintain momentum, and you, Mr President, could perhaps prompt them to go down this road.
This could provide a basis on which the Irish Presidency of the Council could put forward proposals for holding a new meeting of Heads of State or Government as soon as possible, although the timetable has to be planned in such a way as to make compromises possible. This meeting must be held, and must resolve matters, before 1 May, when enlargement is due to take place, for this project is, logically speaking, intended to enable the European Union to be enlarged.
I want to give a second reason why this meeting should be held before 1 May, which is that I do not know how, if things remain as they are today, the Heads of Government and we in this House can face the voters on 13 June. It is for this reason – so that the voters can have a perspective that keeps them from losing faith in Europe – that it is from this point that the Heads of State or Government must make a new start before 1 May. I hope, Mr President, that you will, in the remaining weeks of your presidency, join with your successors in setting a project of this kind in motion."@en1
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