Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-16-Speech-2-015"
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"en.20060516.4.2-015"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, in Ancient Rome, when a high-ranking man was condemned, he had the right to have someone else punished on his behalf. It rather looks as if you are in that position today, and you do not deserve it.
However, the President of the Commission should hear the verdict of this House on his role in the constitutional process, and I hope you will ensure that he does so. He has played a quite disastrous role: cowardly, unimaginative, contradictory and deeply counterproductive. Perhaps he applied for a job as the grave-digger for the European Constitution; he certainly has every chance of getting it. I know that the President of the Commission is a master of misunderstanding: we have certainly always misunderstood him. One can hardly quote him without him claiming the exact opposite in the same speech, and whenever one tries to pin him down he claims to have meant something quite different.
Interestingly, however, the whole of Europe has understood the same message from this master of misunderstanding: no chance. Nothing will happen for years. Nice? Oh, it was not as bad as all that! As he said, the world will keep on turning without the Constitution. And the worst thing is that the citizens still expect results, not rhetoric. That is yet another misunderstanding, of course, but the citizens have understood perfectly well.
Since the start of his time in office, the President of the Commission has not made the slightest effort to find a solution to this constitutional conflict. At no point has he acted as an advocate for the European Constitution. For him, it is a glass bead game for political elites, institutional European navel-gazing – a phrase from Mr Blair, variations of which he continually drops in.
Commissioner, we will not make any progress this way. Parliament has adopted a decision. Right from the start there was a lack of support from the Commission, and there have been some significant misunderstandings. Nice may well allow some steps towards integration, Commissioner: we know that there are 'bridges'. There are possibilities for silent, almost discreet integration, but is that really what you want? Without a Charter of Fundamental Rights? Without the comprehensive democratisation of the EU? With no capacity to take action? Without the 'pedal to the metal' of unanimity in many areas? Do you really want it without social rights? Do you want it without a constitution to create the political environment in which the interests of the people of Europe can be better taken into account? Greater legitimacy, introducing more representation into decisions, more transparency and openness to the citizens, greater accountability to the citizens, more checks and balances, more parliamentary and judicial controls: that is what the constitution contains! It is not just formulas or pure rhetoric, as the President of the Commission keeps trying to suggest in this debate.
You say he is listening to the people. I was very surprised by the Eurobarometer surveys following the referendums in France and the Netherlands, which clearly showed that more than two thirds of those who had voted 'no' were in favour of improving the constitution, and that they wanted those improvements to aim for a social Europe. In other words, this conflict is about a European democracy and the social dimension of Europe as a response to globalisation. And what is Mr Barroso doing? He is listening to the people and hearing something completely different. He is increasingly becoming the advocate of a Europe of governments.
The crux and the cause of the crisis is the Europe of governments. Did he not understand that the people were protesting against the democratic deficit, against the lack of transparency? Did he not listen? They did not mention terrorism. Yes, the Austrian Presidency is talking about subsidiarity and bureaucracy and the Court of Justice, but the citizens are not. While the governments are clinging on to their claims to power, the citizens want a European democracy, they want a social dimension, they want their basic rights, and they want a better constitution.
It is the President of the Commission’s historical responsibility to initiate and support this improvement process, and he would be well advised to assume it."@en1
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