Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-032"
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"en.20070606.12.3-032"2
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"Madam President, my group wishes this report a large and convincing majority, and we hope that it will indeed receive that level of support. We thank the rapporteurs for this excellent proposal.
This resolution can assume great significance if the House succeeds in conveying the message to our governments that it is truly prepared to champion the cause of European democracy, that it is truly prepared to defend the enshrinement of the fundamental rights and that it is truly prepared to fight for the dissolution of the pillar structure and the preservation of qualified majority voting in the Constitutional Treaty, even at the risk of having to say ‘no’. In the course of many years, I have experienced many ultimatums in this Chamber and many grandiose gestures and a great deal of shouting from the barricades and many promises to vote ‘no’ if this or that decision did not reflect the public interest. Not once have I ever seen this House actually take to the barricades, vote ‘no’ or act on a single ultimatum. If we do not stand fast on this present ultimatum, however, this House will have to face the judgment of history.
After two years of the period for reflection – whoever might have done any reflecting – the governments have run up lengthy lists of sins. Indeed, we could speak of the Seven Deadly Sins of governments. Parliaments, including this House, have long been excluded from the constitutive process. The public have been sidelined. The process is now taking place behind closed doors. A kind of nationalism is manifesting itself ever more brazenly and blatantly in many Member States across Europe without meeting any real resistance.
The discussion on the amendment of the Treaty is a far cry from the referendums in France and the Netherlands, from the calls for more democracy, for more social responsibility for Europe, for a response to globalisation and for a more effective Union. None of the demands that are on the table today have anything to do with what people have been calling for. They have a great deal to do, however, with what the governments have been calling for loud and long, even in the Convention, namely the assertion of their own authority and the infringement and overturning of the consensus we wrung out of them in the Convention. No longer do we hear of the merits of Europe, of more social responsibility and more democracy.
The governments are misappropriating the referendum results in France and the Netherlands. They are misappropriating them to diminish Europe, to create their own intergovernmental, socially irresponsible Europe. We should not take that lying down. This constitution is a guarantor of European democracy and hence the key to resolving the social issues of the future. I doubt whether the pivotal negotiating principle, which consists in the avoidance of referendums, represents an effective strategy. We shall not overcome this crisis of confidence in Europe if we bypass the people. We can only resolve it by winning them over."@en1
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