Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-31-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20060531.9.3-025"2
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".
Mr President, Prime Minister Verhofstadt, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 455 million people now live in the European Union, many millions more than the populations of the United States of America and Russia combined. Soon there will be almost 500 million people in 25, then 27 and later perhaps even more countries.
Mr Verhofstadt, I welcome your statement that the ratification process should continue. We should also particularly like to thank Estonia for having ratified the constitution a few days ago. We would encourage Finland to continue with the ratification process – the leaders of the groups will be going to Helsinki tomorrow.
I would also say to our Polish friends and partners that you have a good point on the issue of energy. You are quite right to expect solidarity when it comes to energy supplies. Solidarity applies to all the countries in the European Union, but Poland, too, must exhibit solidarity when it is a matter of our future, on the basis of a treaty, a constitution, that gives us a prospect for the future. Solidarity is not a one-way street, but a two-way process, and it applies to all Europeans.
Let me conclude by saying this: our group is deeply committed to subsidiarity, and subsidiarity includes local, regional, national and European levels. The local level and the lower levels in the sense of 'close to the people' need to act when they are the best ones to do so, but the European Union needs to act when the nation states can no longer act, when they are too small to solve the problem. It is therefore our duty to make the path, the principles and the foundations of the Constitutional Treaty a reality. We must find common solutions, in all 25 countries and here in the European Parliament too.
I must say that, whenever I leave Europe and then return, I always have a profound feeling of gratitude to be back in Europe, because there is no other continent with as much diversity – including cultural diversity – as the continent of Europe and the European Union. However, this continent is also a difficult one – just think how many parties are represented here in the European Parliament and how we continually need to work to reach joint results.
I should like to say, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, that, in our opinion, the Treaty of Nice cannot form the basis for leading 500 million people into a brighter future. We must go further, and we therefore welcome today's debate. A debate should result in people listening to each other, understanding each other and, hopefully, reaching joint results. I am therefore pleased that Prime Minister Verhofstadt is here today, and it was always the three Benelux countries that gave the greatest impetus to Europe. I hope and expect that, at the end of this process of strengthening the substance and the principles of the European Union, the three Benelux countries – not just Belgium or Luxembourg, but the Netherlands too – will be at the forefront of European development.
Immediately following Nice, the European People's Party said that Nice was not enough, and we had some very frank discussions with President Chirac in Strasbourg in December 2000. At our congress in January 2001, we in the European People's Party drafted a resolution saying that we want to go further, we want a new conference, and we want, if possible, a constitution, a constitutional treaty. Perhaps the name 'constitution' was too ambitious for many people. That may well be the case, and we must look into it carefully. I would remind you of what Mr Juncker said last Thursday when he deservedly received the Charlemagne Prize of Aachen: it is not acceptable for the Heads of State or Government of the countries of the EU to spend Monday to Saturday talking down the European Union and Brussels, and then to expect there to be a good result in referendums and plebiscites on Sunday.
This is unacceptable, and that is why we call on all governments in the European Union to depict Europe as it really is – with both its positive and negative developments.
We in Europe have got used to always just talking in negative terms: for many people, the glass is always half empty instead of half full.
Mr Verhofstadt, you referred to 1 May 2004, when eight formerly Communist East European countries – Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were occupied by the Soviet Union – acceded to the European Union, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. It is not the European Union that has expanded, but its force of attraction. Its strength in peace, freedom, democracy and the rule of law was the force that attracted these countries, so that they ultimately became Member States. We should publicise this as a really great success for European development.
Let us take the Euro: we are quite justifiably discussing the stability of the Euro. Much of this discussion has been presented very negatively, including in connection with the reform, and it certainly is a considerable challenge. However, just imagine we did not have a common European currency. Where would we now stand in the globalisation process if the countries of the European Union were still devaluing their currencies to give themselves an export advantage in the European Union? Europeans would be set against each other, and it would take away from us any chance of being competitive on a global scale. So let us be positive about Europe!
I have just been talking to the Dutch Minister for European Affairs. I found it very enlightening to hear him say that, in an Internet survey in the Netherlands, many of the participants said that we needed more Europe, for example with regard to internal security, agreements on immigration and the major issues of asylum. It is therefore our common task to find a way, through discussions and then decisions, of turning the substance and principles of the Constitution into political and, in the first place, also into legal reality."@en1
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