Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-12-12-Speech-3-026"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20071212.2.3-026"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, there are some important issues on the agenda of the forthcoming European Council. I look forward to hearing about improving Europe’s competitiveness, about progress towards Europe’s ambitious goals for tackling climate change and about Europe’s commitment to working with the developing nations to alleviate poverty. Yet the focus this week will inevitably be on the signing of the Reform Treaty in Lisbon.
As we British Conservatives have consistently said, there was no substantive requirement for this far-reaching Treaty and, just this week, one of Europe’s leading academic experts published a report on the effects of enlargement of the EU. She has stated clearly what we have been saying for some time, namely that the EU has been operating perfectly well without this Reform Treaty. She says, and I quote, ‘The evidence of practice since May 2004 suggests that the EU’s institutional processes and practice have stood up rather robustly to the impact of enlargement’.
This is important bearing in mind all we have been told – that the EU could not cope with enlargement without institutional upheaval or even log-jam. All of this reinforces our view that this Treaty is all about political symbolism rather than any objective assessment of what Europe needs.
In addition to challenging the rationale for this Treaty, we have also been very critical of the process that brought us to this stage. It beggars belief to claim that this Treaty is not in substance the selfsame European Constitution that was so emphatically rejected when it was put to the vote in France and the Netherlands. Alone among his fellow leaders, the British Prime Minister persists in perpetuating this myth that the Treaty and the Constitution are different. The British people do not believe him and the vast majority have repeatedly expressed their view that there should be a referendum. Mr Brown has ignored their wishes and this has done much to undermine his Government and the European Union more generally."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples