Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-13-Speech-3-021"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is not without some emotion that I stand before you for the last time as President of the European Commission. In a few days, in fact, the road we have been travelling together for five years will come to an end. These five years have been marked by major political and institutional changes and momentous events in Europe and around the world.
Now we have reached the end of the story. In a few days’ time, the Constitutional Treaty will be signed in Rome. This will, without a doubt, be a highly significant event for Europe, bringing greater democracy, greater simplicity and greater transparency, although it does have other, less satisfactory aspects – the situations where unanimity is still needed, for instance. This is a story to which we, and especially you, the Members of the European Parliament, have made a fundamental contribution.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have spoken about enlargement, institutional reform and policies for growth and peace: none of that would have been possible if, while we were working on all those areas, we had not restored order, strength, prestige and pride to our own institution, the European Commission. Indeed, there can be no change without comprehensive reform of the structures and apparatus of administration. The first positive effects are now starting to be felt in several sectors, such as decentralised financial control or external aid programmes.
Above all, however, the reforms contained strong political messages and were designed to restore the Commission’s legitimacy, independence and efficiency. I need only mention the system for the rotation of the directors-general, after long years when certain directorates-general had regularly been allocated to officials of the same nationality; or the nationality rules for Commissioners and their staff; or, lastly, the decision to move the Commissioners closer to the departments they control.
More than anything else, however, there is one element that has characterised my Commission and of which I am particularly proud: its collegiality. I have been able to rely on a close-knit, highly professional team, which has worked together in great harmony. Some members of this Commission today hold top positions in their national governments and parliaments. These too, I feel, are clear, tangible signs of the renewal and growth of the institution over which I have had the honour of presiding for more than five years. I am also sure that the Commission will become even stronger under the presidency of José Manuel Barroso, and I wish him every success.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the process of unifying our continent gives us a great opportunity to extend the stability and prosperity of the Union throughout the region surrounding it. Therefore, we have not confined ourselves to pushing the divide, the ‘Wall’, a few hundred kilometres further east or south. For years there was talk about the borders of Europe, but no working proposal was ever put forward. We have now proposed a new vision for the Union’s borders through our neighbourhood policy, which aims at setting up a genuine special relationship with the whole arc of countries from Russia to Morocco. The European Constitution itself recognises the need – which we highlighted – to establish a new relationship between the Union and our neighbouring countries.
At a time when everybody is talking about a ‘clash of civilisations’ – although I am convinced that it is mostly a ‘clash of ignorance’ – we have given a great boost to intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding, particularly in the Euro-Mediterranean area. On the subject of the Mediterranean, I remember well the fierce criticism I received when I wanted to open up to Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya. Now, two days after the sanctions against Libya were lifted, that moment really seems a long time ago. It has been just four years, but four years of discreet, constant, intense work that have enabled us to set important changes in motion in that country and have paved the way for Libya to be readmitted into the international community.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, throughout these years we have always come out strongly and clearly in favour of multilateralism. More world and regional governance, a closer partnership with the United Nations, and less disparity between North and South have been the goals inspiring our actions. We have not merely ‘talked’ of multilateralism: we have put it into practice in order to achieve our goals and political options.
I shall mention just a few examples. We have linked the objective of liberalising trade to the need to take greater account of the legitimate demands of civil society and developing countries. We have played a central role in enlarging the World Trade Organisation in order to encourage more effective world governance. We have geared our cooperation and development and our humanitarian programmes above all towards the reduction of poverty. We have strengthened our links with other regions of the world, such as Latin America or Asia, and have assisted in new regional integration processes, such as the African Union.
Lastly, we have made a real contribution to strengthening the transatlantic relationship. After the war in Iraq, many claimed that the gap between the two continents could no longer be bridged. I have never believed that kind of idea, since I am certain that, in those areas where Europe has its own identity and is not paralysed by national vetoes, it can achieve significant results when working alongside Washington – and on equal terms. We have therefore worked hard and effectively with our US partners on practical issues of great importance, both in the area of security and the fight against terrorism, and in certain parts of the world such as the Balkans. I have said this before and I say it again: in this difficult, often tragic world, Europe – and Europe alone – has been able to export democracy.
In the economic field, the euro has without doubt been the star of our mandate. From the outset, the euro was to be the cornerstone of the new Europe. From the outset, therefore, we regarded the euro as a great political project and not just an economic one; a project for political leaders and not just central bankers; a project requiring vision, authority and coordination. Throughout our mandate we have stressed the need for stronger economic governance, because the cost to Europe of not standing united in this area is still too high.
I should like to begin this meeting of ours by reminding you where the European Union stood in 1999. On the institutional front, there were many who wanted to limit reform to the so-called ‘leftovers’ from Amsterdam and who proposed an institutional agenda that was limited in scope and certainly not up to the new challenges facing the Union. In the unfavourable economic climate of the time, there was very strong concern, doubt and scepticism about the actual chances of bringing in the euro.
To this end, we have drawn up several proposals to adapt the Stability and Growth Pact to Europe’s new requirements and new economic reality, and we have finally opened up a debate that several players had called for but none had had the courage to begin. I must admit I smiled when, after all the criticism about my stand, a well-known French daily wrote that the Commission’s recent proposals had made the pact ‘smarter’.
Then we have consistently made our contributions to the Lisbon Strategy and put forward the various proposals needed to achieve our goal of making the Union the world’s most competitive and dynamic economy by 2010. To mention just a few examples, just think of the European Research Area, the emphasis placed on innovation in enterprises and on the information society, the new lifelong learning programmes in education and training, and the opening-up of our universities to the world. The reform of the competition policy itself is one of our most significant contributions to improving our competitiveness.
In the social field, the Social Policy Agenda has been the frame of reference for a whole series of measures in the field of employment, social security, health and safety in the workplace, equal opportunities and social inclusion. We have to be honest, however, and admit that many objectives in this field have not been met. Above all, we have not achieved those objectives where we could not resort to the Community method and were held back by the need for unanimity. One of the most telling examples is perhaps the difficulties we encountered with the Community patent, which was repeatedly blocked on linguistic grounds. If the Member States do not learn to behave otherwise, the Lisbon strategy is at risk.
Then there are all the results we have achieved and the proposals we have put forward to set up the area of freedom, security and justice, to improve environmental protection, for the energy and transport sectors, and to strengthen health and consumer protection. For example, there is the implementation of the Tampere agenda and the efforts made to respond to the new challenges of international terrorism after the attacks of 11 September 2001. There is the Gothenburg sustainable development strategy, the Johannesburg Summit and Europe’s action to further the Kyoto Protocol, which now seems capable of producing its final results. In these areas we have truly led the world and demonstrated in practical terms how Europe’s intervention can produce added value in a multilateral context.
We have combined strategic decisions of enormous significance for the future of Europe – such as the European satellite navigation system Galileo, or the global strategy for the ‘single European sky’ – with prompt reactions in emergency situations, such as the shipwrecks of the
in 1999 and the
in 2002.
At the beginning of our mandate there was another sector where it was essential to restore consumer confidence in the wake of the ‘mad cow’ crisis: the food sector. We responded with the integrated ‘farm-to-fork’ strategy, alongside measures such as the European Food Safety Agency. The reform of the common agricultural policy itself is designed to respond to the new challenges on the domestic and world fronts, aiming at a more sustainable strategy that is more mindful of rural development.
Finally, we have put forward our political project – our vision – for post-enlargement Europe, with our proposals for the new Financial Perspective. This is a political project designed to bring a genuine European citizenship into being, a project for a Union now continental in extent which must take on new responsibilities towards its people and shoulder its own responsibilities on the international stage. This, too, has been our ambition: to make Europe a leading player on the world stage, to enable Europe to make its voice heard and work towards creating a world of peace, security and balanced development.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to conclude by mentioning one final point which, I believe, should be laid to the credit of this Commission and the European Parliament. It is the drawing-up of the framework agreement between our two institutions for the whole duration of our terms of office. The agreement has enhanced our shared initiatives, such as the practice of making it a priority to formally notify Parliament of the Commission’s major initiatives. These agreements have strengthened the political role between the Commission and the basis of its democratic legitimacy, which to a great extent lies in the European Parliament. This is undeniably an advance in democracy which I value highly and for which I am grateful to you.
Lastly, I should like to highlight the deep understanding between Parliament and the Commission on legislative matters. Conflicts between us can be counted on the fingers of one hand. We should be delighted at that: it is one of the great merits of the codecision procedure and shows how well the three institutions involved have applied it. At the end of these five years, then, I am pleased with the way constructive relations have developed between the Commission and Parliament. I hope and believe that they will remain like that in future.
If that is the case, it will mean that the outgoing Commission has not only developed good relations with Parliament but has also laid the groundwork for democracy to grow even stronger in Europe. Indeed, I am firmly convinced of the need to have even more Europe and even more ‘Union’ in Europe. We must commit fully to the European political project and take it forwards with strength, conviction and courage. That is what we have done over these years, and I am truly grateful to you for the help and support that you have never failed to give us.
Just as strong were the uncertainties about when to carry out enlargement and the number of countries to include. Many were pressing to limit enlargement to six countries at most. No definite time frame or clear rules had been set out, and the press and public opinion voiced deep-seated fears. Then there were the even greater threats of the Balkan situation looming over the whole continent, in the absence of a clear and convincing EU strategy in the region. Lastly, the Commission itself was in crisis, shaken by the events of 1998 and 1999. Its credibility and authority had fallen to their lowest ebb, and therefore it needed to restore its image by carrying out the first serious, comprehensive overhaul of its administrative structure.
Ladies and gentlemen, faced with this situation, we took up the challenge. Working together with you, we put forward an ambitious agenda for Europe. The kingpin of this agenda, the unifying element that drove our actions and gave them coherence, was enlargement.
The unification of Europe – involving the inclusion of ten new countries, a clear timetable for the other candidate countries and real prospects for the full integration of all the Balkan countries – is the greatest contribution that the European Union could make to the stabilisation and the political, economic and cultural growth of the continent as a whole. To meet the challenge of enlargement, we had to strike the right balance. We could not move too slowly and run the risk of losing the momentum for joining Europe that was very strong in the candidate countries. We could not rush the process either, without ensuring that we had the support of the people in the Union.
We therefore watched over the reform processes under way in central and eastern Europe and gave them our firm support, and at the same time we took on board the concerns voiced by Europeans about the costs of enlargement, population movements, environmental risks, nuclear safety and corruption. Public support in the new Member States exceeded all expectations, as shown by the success of the various referendums. We have demonstrated that negotiation and dialogue, though at times difficult, complicated and painstaking, are the only democratic way to export democracy and stability.
At the same time, the ambitious enlargement of the Union to meet half the continent’s aspirations for freedom, security and democracy meant that we had to be equally ambitious in dealing with the overhaul of our institutional set-up. Therefore, at first alone but later with the support of an ever-growing consensus, we pressed for reforms that would be equal to the demands of running a Europe of 25 or more Member States. Thus we have been constantly involved in negotiations on institutional reform for the last five years, with the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Nice Conference, the initial rejection by the Irish of the new treaty and its consequences, the European Convention and the Constitutional Treaty. Thanks to the joint efforts of Parliament and the Commission, the convention method has finally established itself, raising the levels of democracy and transparency in Europe.
Nonetheless, the scepticism surrounding this proposal, which I have supported ever since that night in Nice, was very deep. Never have two views on Europe clashed so much as they did then. On the one side a strong, political Europe, equal to the global challenges facing us, and on the other a weak Europe, seen merely as an area of prosperity, stability and regulation and not as a real political entity. For the rest, Europe has changed considerably compared with the 1980s and 1990s, as have the various governments’ attitudes and policies on Europe, as well.
Over these years, alliances between governments have very often been pragmatic, one-off affairs, linked to specific proposals or the current domestic or international political situation; there have been no groupings of countries consistently pressing for closer integration. We, for our part, have always fought to make our Union stronger, more democratic and more effective. We put forward highly innovative proposals – for the EU Foreign Minister, for instance – both at the European Convention and at the Intergovernmental Conference that followed."@en1
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