Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-26-Speech-2-022"
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"en.20041026.5.2-022"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, an impressive picture presents itself to my right. The Council of the European Union feels that Queen Beatrix is representation enough today. We should take note of that. Because Mr Poettering is of course right that this is an important day. Here we have a Commission President who is fighting for confidence in his Commission. Parliament is here, as is the entire Commission. Perhaps the Council will arrive later on. Mr Barroso, you have made remarks that we have all heard before. Today you added a few initiatives, but you still have not addressed a significant part of what my group has been trying to get over to you for days. The point is that we expect you to draw the obvious conclusions from a six-week process that has taken place here in this Parliament. For six weeks we have listened to the nominee Commissioners and have drawn conclusions in five different committees – controversial conclusions in the case of one particular Commissioner, who did not win a majority in one committee, and four further sets of conclusions in which serious comments were made, serious comments which led to proposals and suggestions being put to you. And the answer that we are being given yet again today, Mr Barroso, is this: I will not change anything; the portfolios will not be reassigned. That is a significant hurdle.
That is a hurdle. I can only appeal to you once more to think again. This morning, once again, I should like to tell you about the impression I get; it is that you are confusing the vote of confidence on your Commission with one in a national parliament. The European Parliament does not form opposing majorities. The European Parliament is – you are right there, Mr Poettering – heterogeneous. It consists of diverse currents of opinion. Even within our groups – as you of course know from bitter experience – there are very heterogeneous currents of opinion, and anyone who wants to win a large majority in this House has to show consideration for these different currents and try, as far as possible, to accommodate them all. For weeks, your approach has been: I have a Commission, I have handed out the portfolios, and I am not prepared to make any changes! If that is the case then even cosmetic changes in the form of announcements of initiatives are not going to help. If that is the case then it will be very difficult for us to express confidence in your Commission.
This is also about the issue of confidence. We know that we are voting on the Commission as a whole, not on individual Commissioners, however controversial they may be. This being the case, the question becomes one of basic confidence. At the end of the day, after weighing up all of the facts and all of the observations that have been made about individual candidates, do we have a fundamental confidence in this Commission as a whole, as a collective body, or do we not? That is the salient question here. Since we cannot pick out individual points but have to decide whether we have this fundamental confidence in the collective body, that is precisely what our group will be considering this evening. Do we have this fundamental confidence, or do we not?
I have to say that I found nothing in your speech this morning to increase my confidence. I should like to take up one point that you mentioned. You referred to the US elections. My group does indeed hope that John Kerry will be elected President. We hope that he will be President because he is someone who says that the war in Iraq was a mistake. We want the USA to be led by a President who says, yes, that was a mistake, and a leader who admits to his mistakes is what we want for Europe too.
One final comment: a democratic vote is a normal democratic act. If this Parliament voices its confidence in your Commission, then you will have won. That decision will have to be respected! But if you do not have the confidence of this House tomorrow, it will not herald an institutional crisis, it will be a normal process, a normal right exercised by a freely elected Parliament in respect of an executive."@en1
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