Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-22-Speech-2-207"
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"en.20070522.23.2-207"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you very much for this debate, which like all debates in this Parliament has been concise, constructive and frank. It has highlighted a huge range of positions regarding the future of the European Union. If we listen to some of the final speakers, some positions are irreconcilable.
This problem certainly needs to be tackled, debated and taken forward in an open and democratic way, as always happens and always has happened within this Parliament. It is precisely this fact that prompted me to make my initial speech; it is precisely in order to regulate this great diversity and breadth of opinions that we have to have rules that allow us to run the European Union, as we have all had.
We are forgetting the long road travelled in organising the Constitutional Treaty; we are forgetting the 18 months of the Convention, the debates, the involvement of the national parliaments and of the European Parliament. We are forgetting that it was not a closed debate. We arrived, however, at a result; I quote the words of Cristiana Muscardini: ‘but we need to pay attention to the fact that in politics it is necessary to reach a compromise, a lofty compromise’. Well, the draft Constitution was already a compromise!
As President of the European Commission, I regretted the fact that some great advances were missing from that treaty. We wanted that compromise, because we realised, with the pragmatism of politics, that one cannot have everything! We realised that our idea of Europe was even stronger, but that, at that time, this was what was permitted by historical circumstances.
It was signed by all the countries in the Union, including the UK, on the responsibility of the governments of the Union. Now people are saying that the treaty was created in a small room far from the wishes of the people. It was created by the representatives of the people! It was signed by the governments elected by the people! That is what happened! Clearly we can still search for compromise, because throughout our lives we have always sought compromise, but we cannot allow compromise to frustrate and nullify the European project.
That is the ultimate limit that we gave ourselves and it is for that reason that I made a speech in which I sketched out the fundamental points which we cannot abandon: they are the will of the people, the issue of the pillars and the issue of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. How can it be that we are ashamed of calling the person who represents us the Minister of Foreign Affairs? Call this person the Secretary of State, if you wish, using the English terminology. What are we afraid of? Do we not realise how much not having a Minister of Foreign Affairs has cost us over the years? Do we not realise what we have been unable to do in the Middle East and all the neighbouring areas, and how we have let the political situation deteriorate, through our own divisions?
Is this the sort of irresponsibility with which we are going to face history? Look, what is going to be at stake in the next few days is this final aspect of our political unity, the ultimate aspect of our ability to represent Europe in the world. If we cannot understand that now, when will we be able to? It is only a couple of years or so ago since I left that seat in the Commission! So, in view of the power relations in the world – China, India, Asia – the problem has been that Europe has not been able to speak to these great peoples and has not been able to speak as an equal to the United States, or to convince it!
Is that not enough of a burden on our future? Do we want to continue to count for nothing for another whole generation? That is the question that I put to you ahead of the Intergovernmental Conference and the European Council. I ask no other questions. I put forward Europe’s sense of responsibility to history, to our lives and to those of our children."@en1
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