Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-07-22-Speech-4-068"
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"en.20040722.4.4-068"2
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"Mr President, I also wish to join in this debate on the candidature of the President-designate, Mr Barroso. When I listen to the speeches in this House I am always amazed at the differences in ideologies and backgrounds. However, it is at critical times like these that I recognise how hung up we all are with ideology and sentiments more suited to the 19th and early 20th centuries, rather than the 21st century.
We have the great privilege in this House to be the representatives of the people of Europe. We have a duty to take real decisions on their behalf, not on the altar of any ideology but according to what we believe is in the best interests of the people of Europe. We have a duty to ensure that we cooperate and coordinate with other representatives of the peoples of Europe. The closest we can get to that are governments. The 25 sovereign governments in their wisdom have given their support to Mr Barroso and, if for no other reason, that is enough for me to give him my support.
On top of that, there is the fact that Mr Barroso came to us as the directly elected representatives of the people of Europe to put his case in each of our groups. Whilst Members may criticise his political skills or his unwillingness to give them the answers to the questions they wanted, at least give him recognition for the courtesy of coming to us. He set out a political stall where he could; he did not answer questions he was unable to answer. I know that Members in my own group asked questions such as: will this person get this Commission post? He replied that he could not discuss that because he was not yet the President and he did not know who the other nominees were going to be. I admire a man who is willing to say that he may have made mistakes in the past but now we are moving forward.
In his submissions and hearings with our group he spoke about his role as an honest broker. We need an honest broker to operate within the European Union because, despite what the ideologists may think, the European Union is not the model of something else. Its institutions are not imitations: they are unique institutions reflecting unique arrangements of Member States, intergovernmentalism, cooperation, coordination and – despite what some colleagues may say – democracy.
I would love to have somebody at the head of that Union who is and was a politician, who was part of different ideologies, who recognised the errors of his ways in his youth, who came forward and changed those ways to reflect what was most needed. It is not a left or right divide, it is not that the left is wrong and the right is correct or vice versa, it is about taking what is best from all ideologies to ensure we can deliver for all the people. It is not Boston versus Berlin, it is ensuring that we do what is right for all the people in Europe in the 21st century.
We stand today at a new frontier, the dawn of a new era, when the old visions of Europe have been broken down, when countries that were denied the opportunities to have democracy and representation are being given that opportunity now. It does not bode well that we take the opportunity to play politics at this juncture. My group, the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, and I will be giving our full support to Mr Barroso's nomination and we hope other Members will do so well."@en1
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