Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-07-Speech-4-008"
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"en.20070607.3.4-008"2
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Madam President, honourable Members, thank you very much indeed for inviting me to visit your Parliament; the invitation is a timely one. As you are all aware, we are currently engaged in tackling a summit, the summit in question being that of the G8 in Heiligendamm, but we, too, are perfectly well aware that there is another looming up in about a fortnight’s time, and that one – as I am sure you will agree – will be an event with a decisive impact on Europe’s future, something about which you and we both hope all participants in the European Council are not in doubt either. I can, at any rate, assure you that I have never in my life had to have as many bilateral talks with my European partners and counterparts as I have had to do over the last couple of weeks, and other members of the German Federal Government, right the way up to our Chancellor, are of course doing likewise.
I am, of course, well aware that the success of the European Council is not dependent on the issues that I have just briefly mentioned. All of them are important, but its success or failure will of course be measured in terms of another issue, namely the success of treaty reform within the European Union. I am aware of the great deal of backing that the Presidency has received from your House in this matter, and I want to thank you for it. Yesterday, I had a chance to have a brief look at the Crespo-Brok report, from which I see that you have managed to maintain the tricky balance between striving for a positive and ambitious result and maintaining the necessary realism without which an agreement cannot be reached.
You are all familiar – for I find it described in the report – with the situation with which we are presented, in which 18 Member States have ratified. These 18 Member States are no easier negotiating partners for us than those which are in a different position with regard to the ratification process. As you know, there have been negative outcomes from some referendums, behind which lie people’s fears – fears felt, no doubt, not only in France and the Netherlands, fears that we were obliged – and still are obliged – to take seriously. Following the talks I have had with many of you, I see evidence in your House, too, of willingness to do likewise.
It has to be said, though, that, to judge by the most recent surveys, people in Europe are not against Europe; far from it, they want an EU that is capable of action and efficient, that concentrates on the essentials, that tackles problems and really sorts them out.
I am convinced that the great work of European reform, with which we embarked on this debate, goes a long way towards refuting the argument that still today underpins criticism of the EU, namely that it is too inefficient and too slow to take decisions, and so I am glad to hear, from all the people I have talked to around Europe, that they are willing to deliver the institutional reform package that I am convinced we so urgently need, for all of them know that it is institutional reform alone that will enable us to make Europe more democratic, more transparent and more efficient. Nor do I find any evidence of anyone believing that renegotiating this package of institutional reforms would put us in a better position.
The discussions I have had have also given me the impression that there was general agreement on specific policies such as the European Union’s external actions, justice and home affairs, energy policy and the social dimension, where it was generally agreed that what we have achieved so far must be maintained. There is discussion as to whether anything needs to be added to specific policies, and I note that there is a predominant willingness to make additions in the fields of climate change protection and energy solidarity, to which the European Council has stated that particular importance is to be attached.
I realise that you are looking with particular interest at the part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and an overwhelming majority, practically without exception, shares our view that we need to make the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding, that is to say, that we should hold fast to its binding legal character.
Others point out that its status as binding law must not be to the detriment of the Member States’ competences. I do believe in any case that we will manage to find a solution to this that will be endorsed by the European Parliament.
What I believe the consultations also showed is that people recognise that, by pressing on with this European reform, we are taking the idea of subsidiarity further, but there are, nevertheless, those who want to go further and again strengthen the hands of the national parliaments, and that is what much of the discussions with our European colleagues has been about. We understood what they wanted, and now we have to give it to them. While we will of course be submitting relevant proposals, I would argue that this should be done in a way that does not increase the opportunities for the use of the veto in Europe, for if the overall objective of making Europe effective is to remain intact, we must not allow the European institutional structure to be even more subject to vetoes than it already is.
It was only two and a half months ago that we – in Berlin, in Brussels and throughout Europe – celebrated 50 years of European unity. The European Union is a model of success. Speaking as a foreign minister who frequently has to travel around outside the borders of the European Union, I can tell you that it is a model that makes many people around the world envious of us. Somebody in Germany remarked that, even if the European Union had managed to keep Europe peaceful and stable for only 50 years, that would have been sufficient justification for its having been founded.
I do, in any case, get the impression that all the interested parties take the Berlin Declaration seriously as regards the specific point that the elections to the European Parliament in 2009 are to take place on a renewed basis; there is a willingness to cooperate in this and – or so I would say following the talks I have had – even a new enthusiasm for it. It strikes me that a path is steadily being mapped out towards a solution that could bring forth agreement at the European Council.
What is clear is that we have not yet reached our destination; there are still something like two weeks left before the European Council, and we are of course using this time primarily for further consultations with those with whom we have not yet worked out an agreement on the potential solutions that have so far come to light, but let me repeat that there is a real chance of an agreement being reached, and, if we fail to seize it, there will not be another.
What will be crucial is that we summon up the shared political will to achieve an agreement. ‘Europe – succeeding together!’ – so we said at the outset of our presidency, and it will also be the motto for the forthcoming European Council.
While I am aware that many of you in this House would have liked to hear even more in detail about the individual conversations with the European Member States, I would ask you to understand that we have to maximise the prospects for the Council’s success, and so I would not wish, by making them public, to throw away what we have achieved, slowly but surely, in many conversations over recent weeks.
As you know, it has been far more successful than that, for its borders are open and it forms a single market with 500 million people living in it. Although the European Union can point to disadvantaged regions that have now achieved growth and prosperity, we all know that this sort of success does not happen automatically and that there is no guarantee of similar successes over the next 50 years, and so it was that, even on 25 March, on Europe’s birthday, we knew that the task facing us today and the European Council in particular would not be easy ones.
What this is about is nothing less than the creation of a renewed basis on which the European Union will function, a new treaty framework that will enable us to remain effective as an enlarged Union in the world of the twenty-first century. Laying the ground for successful treaty reform will be the main topic of the forthcoming European Council on 21 and 22 June.
Much is being expected of the summit, and I believe we would be well advised not to encourage people to expect still more of it; as Balthasar Gracián put it back in the seventeenth century, ‘The real can never equal the imagined, for it is easy to form ideals but very difficult to realise them’. We would do well, then, to adopt a realistic approach to the European Council.
I am, nevertheless, optimistic, for the EU has shown, particularly over recent months, that it is capable of resolute action when its Member States are ready for it. I am thinking here of the groundbreaking decisions taken on climate and energy at the last Spring Summit, which will serve, as the debate in Heiligendamm is showing, as, in some sense, benchmarks for the whole international debate on how to handle climate change; or you may want to take as examples two very contemporary European lawmaking projects, in the shape of the roaming regulation and the creation of a single European payment area, in both of which projects, I know, your House had a very considerable part to play.
Among the things that the forthcoming European Council will be thinking about will be concrete policies that serve the people of Europe, responsible and forward-looking action in our dealings with the outside world, and I can tell you that we, quite apart from the big issue of the Constitution, will be concerning ourselves with such things as the efforts towards a common integration policy. While we did the right thing by joining with the North African transit countries in seeking solutions on which we can agree, we do know that any immigration policy must amount to more than just beefing up Frontex and toughening up the coastguards in the North African states, for the transit states need help, and, most of all, the states that most of the refugees coming to Europe have left need economic stabilisation. The joint talks that have now been arranged by the European ministers of the interior and of labour are very much to be welcomed.
Another area of policy in justice and internal affairs that matters a great deal to people – particularly to those in the new Member States – is the extension of freedom to travel throughout the EU, and that is why we want to bring forward preparations for enlarging the Schengen area in such a way that the process can be completed in 2008. We will also, at the European Council, be submitting a report on the further development of the European Neighbourhood Policy. We have every interest – as your House agrees – in binding our southern and eastern neighbours as closely as possible to the European Union, and we will do so by means of increased sectoral cooperation – in energy, transport, participation in the internal market, adoption of EU law and through intensive exchange in education and culture, for example – and in these areas, much remains to be done.
Not least because I personally have had a hand in it, I am glad that it is possible to adopt a new EU strategy on Central Asia, a region that has not hitherto enjoyed much attention on Europe’s part, but one with which we must seek closer cooperation, not only – and let me take this opportunity to stress this – because of its economic possibilities, but also because it is very much affected by the instability on its southern borders, in Afghanistan and Iran, and because, since the regional tendency is towards moderate Islam, it will continue to be open to dialogue with us."@en1
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