Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-16-Speech-2-040"
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"en.20031216.1.2-040"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe will never be finished, but we must press on with the project for political union with determination and vision, and on a Community basis. If we do not, the public will lose confidence in us. If we do not, we will achieve neither integration nor consolidation. If we do not, we cannot discharge our responsibilities for our continent on the world stage, and mistakes can be made. They can be corrected, and they must be. What has happened, though, is not just a matter of mistakes being made; what I find lamentable is the lack of sufficient political will on the part of the Heads of State or Government who took part and hence the lack of European leaders, indeed of European statesmen. Will, courage, emotion, enthusiasm – all are wanting, and so, therefore, are credibility and confidence.
Whenever the future of Europe depends on unanimous approval by the Council rather than on agreement between the Community institutions, crisis is in the air. It happened with the sanctions against Austria, it happened with the Iraq crisis, it happened with the Stability and Growth Pact. More and more frequently, we blame the Community objectives for problems at national level. So let me conclude by saying that the Convention has not failed, the Commission has not stood in the way, Parliament is not putting the brakes on a Europe that is more democratic, more transparent and closer to its citizens. We say a forthright ‘no’ to unanimity and ‘yes’ to a dual majority, which is democratically fair, ‘no’ to the apportionment of blame and ‘yes’ to shared responsibility in Europe, ‘no’ to a more nationalised internal policy and ratification process and ‘yes’ to their becoming more European, ‘no’ to the Intergovernmental Conference method and ‘yes’ to the Convention in which governments and parliaments are represented, ‘yes’ to a European Union of peoples and citizens, ‘no’ to an intergovernmental core Europe, ‘yes’ to shouldering our responsibilities within Europe and around the world, ‘no’ to a reduction of Member States’ contributions. We say ‘yes’ to the idea of summoning the Convention after Christmas in order to discuss the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference and in order to speedily implement all that came out of the Convention, or was agreed at the Intergovernmental Conference, and is feasible on the basis of current law."@en1
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