Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-15-Speech-2-039"
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"en.20051115.7.2-039"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, the work programme for 2006 is not just any old programme. It must be a programme that makes the EU visible once more to every citizen, and, moreover, visible in a positive light.
The EU’s problems with credibility and acceptance may no longer be the stuff of newspaper headlines, but they have, of course, still not gone away, and they can be back on the front pages at any moment. It is because they are far from having been overcome that the challenge for the EU is all the greater: its policies must show the public that it really is worth it. That will be achieved through comprehensible policies that produce results, and the best possible results at that. What that does not mean is producing as much legislation as possible with the maximum impact on the maximum number of people. On the contrary, the big issue for the politics of united Europe must always be about how we can get Europe to the top.
That is where the title of the work programme, ‘unlocking Europe’s full potential’, gets it exactly right. I might add that that was the keynote of the Liberals’ election campaign in 2004, and I am glad to see you making use of it. It is for that reason, too, that I am glad that the work programme was put together in cooperation with Parliament’s committees. Putting together a common programme for all the EU institutions is a step in the right direction. The fact is that everything else is fragmentary, and the public no longer regard it as justifiable.
The four core areas – to which reference has already been made – are very definitely the right ones. It follows that the claim that this policy is close to the public’s concerns is still very far from being backed up. Neither in structure nor in content, alas, does the work programme meet this requirement of being close to the public; at any rate, it cannot be called better regulation if the two parts presented have nothing whatever to do with one another, so that the programme does not hang together.
I would like to highlight a few areas that are of particular importance to us Liberals and Democrats. It is a very good thing that the highest priority is given to the Lisbon agenda; a consistent policy aimed at education, research and growth will create more jobs and thereby make the EU competitive. That does of course involve the realisation of the single market for services, including financial services. It is also important that we should be ambitious in driving forward the reform of agricultural policy by, among other things, reallocating more funds to agricultural research and technology.
Where internal security is concerned, we believe that two aspects have to be accorded equal importance, one being the need for security and the other respect for freedom. The fact is that we will be no more secure, nor will terrorism be vanquished, if the freedoms of the EU, against which terrorism is fighting, are themselves curtailed.
Europe is an example, unique in the world, of how lasting peace can be established between countries that were formerly enemies. It is also unique in its peaceful export of the market economy, democracy and human rights. Great though this is, if we are to remain successful, it must point us all in one single direction, and, as the question is what that will be, we, as Europe’s legislators, are under an obligation to come up with comprehensible, reliable and prompt answers. That must be part of our workaday lives; it must become our daily labour. Over the coming weeks, with this work programme for 2006, we must set an example of how to do that.
Over and above that, though, there must be a single dream to unite us as Europeans. It was Victor Hugo who once said that nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Europe was such an idea, and it still is one. The work programme can be a stone in the mosaic of this idea, but it must fit into the picture of a Europe that wants to move forwards, and, most of all, to become stronger."@en1
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