Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-29-Speech-3-020"
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"en.20061129.9.3-020"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the congratulations; I, in my turn, want to congratulate all those who have been elected, irrespective of to what, but I want, for the moment, to focus on Mr Ahern’s speech.
I think it is good that Mr Ahern has come to this House; I am grateful to him for being here, for the fact is that it is not the most obvious thing to do. Not all his colleagues in the European Council can manage to summon up the nerve to come here and affirm their belief in Europe. I want to make it clear that I think the Heads of Government who are publicly backing the European project deserve credit for coming here and saying that, whatever difficulties they face, they are standing up for Europe.
The fact is that there are too many of them who come here, who do not make their presence felt, who avoid this House and stop off perhaps only to collect some money from this or that European fund to take back home, where they will say that Europe is the problem! There are too many of their kind around. What we need are men and women who are in positions of leadership in Europe – be it in the Member States or in the European institutions – and who openly affirm their commitment to this project, and that, Mr Ahern, is why I have to start by thanking you for being here.
Let me make a second comment on the substance of your speech. One can say ‘yes’ to absolutely everything in it, Prime Minister; the five priorities that you set out, the conviction that Ireland is in favour of the Constitution as a matter of principle, your desire to retain what is at the heart of it, your warning to us not to abandon that, for its essential content is the foundation for Europe’s future – all these things are marvellous, but all that is missing is Ireland’s ratification of it, so I urge you to summon up your courage and do that; if your speech today is a cake, that would be the icing on it.
I do not, however, want to demand too much of you, for you have at least taken the right step in the right direction, and even if Ireland were to ratify now, that would get us little further down the road, but, in any case, nineteen out of twenty-seven states would then have ratified it, and the fact that eighteen already have done so or are about to do so means that we can and must take note that the majority of the Member States of the European Union want what is in the Constitution, while those who do not are in the minority. It is, I think, permissible to say that it is this minority that has to give way. It is not acceptable that we should all be debating the future of Europe, while those who said ‘no’ think it is nothing to do with them, so the Dutch, and the French too, must get into step in a future process on the basis of a document to which the overwhelming majority of Member States have said ‘yes’!
I believe that, if we do not move too far from this document, if we really can retain that which it contains, we will be saving the President of the Commission from having to run around like a water diviner in search of portfolios for his Commissioners. If you need proof that Nice does not work and that we need the Constitution as a matter of urgency, then what we see happening with the Commissioners from Bulgaria and Romania is it.
Many thanks, then, Mr Ahern; as we journey towards a renewed constitution, we need you, and we thank you for your encouraging speech."@en1
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