Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-08-Speech-3-031"
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"en.20050608.3.3-031"2
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"Mr President, the voters in the Netherlands and France gave us a clear message: Stop, we are hurtling along without knowing exactly where we are heading. In the Netherlands, 62% of the voters said ‘no’. It is now time we did something positive with those voters. The ‘no’ vote came from two different quarters.
On the one hand, there is the right-wing voter who has a clear anti-European sentiment and says ‘no’ to the European project. There is, on the other hand, a ‘no’ vote from the progressive voter who is in favour of European cooperation but considers this Constitution too intrusive and lacking in the social dimension. These sentiments are also shared by those progressive voters who have voted in favour of the Constitution with some hesitation, in the belief that it was a step forward. We have to try to reunite those progressive voters from the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ camps for the benefit of a clearly defined European project. Needless to say, other countries must also be given the opportunity of speaking out about the European Constitution, but the die is cast in the Netherlands and France. Not this Constitution, not a second referendum on the same subject.
We must avoid becoming isolated or marking time; quite the reverse. We want to mount a reform battle in Europe to demonstrate to both the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ voters that we have heard them. This reform must be based on a broad and open debate about the direction and speed of European integration. How many countries should we allow to join? How do we make Europe strong and social? The Council Summit on 16 and 17 June, and chaired thereafter by Mr Blair, may be able to make a start on thinking about salvaging the key elements, namely Chapters 1 and 2 of the Constitution, the principles of Europe, the improved weighting of vote, the high level of subsidiarity, accessibility, enhanced influence of national parliaments and citizens’ rights, in a simplified treaty. Otherwise, we might well end up in an Echternach-like procession where, unfortunately, we only take steps backward, without a prospect of realistically European cooperation, and as Mr Barroso was right in pointing out that ‘despite much public criticism, Europe is in actual fact the right answer and that is why I continue to be so committed’."@en1
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