Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-009"
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"en.20080220.3.3-009"2
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"Mr President, I would also like to join you in congratulating Richard Corbett. I think that this collaboration between Richard Corbett and a member of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats shows what Europe ultimately is: that, even though we have different ideas and sensitivities, we are capable of doing things together; we are capable of making progress to improve the life of Europeans. I would therefore like to thank Richard Corbett for his collaboration and cooperation, which has always been loyal, and has always, I would like to stress, been aimed at doing things together, building, not at being negative or destroying.
Mr President, three years ago Richard Corbett and I presented the Constitutional Treaty to this House, and we are now European Parliament rapporteurs on the Lisbon Treaty. It is clear, Mr President, that some of us were more ambitious than this Lisbon Treaty, and I think that this House was more ambitious. It is also clear that this is a unique situation. The ratification process had not proceeded, so a political solution had to be found, and the Lisbon Treaty is a political solution. Once again, this is Europe: it is seeking agreements, seeking commitments in order to find a way out of crises and get out of sticky situations.
Mr Corbett has given a very good explanation, and I therefore echo his words concerning the advantages of the Lisbon Treaty over the Treaties currently in force. I would like to add one thing that Richard Corbett did not say: the Lisbon Treaty is not the Constitutional Treaty. We had to leave many of our ambitions by the wayside, which I regret, but I also think that the essential elements of the Constitutional Treaty are in the Lisbon Treaty. Although it is not the same, we have managed to retain the essential elements.
What are the essential elements, then? What do we gauge as essential? The essential elements are those that will enable the European Union to be more democratic, those that will enable the European Union to be more efficient, those, in short, that will enable the European Union to provide added value for citizens.
Mr President, this is the only thing that should motivate the European Parliament. We are the representatives of the European people and they should be the point of reference for our actions. We are living in a very important time for Europe. We saw this yesterday, with the situation in Kosovo.
Europe must provide an outlet for the expectations that the European people have placed on us. Europe cannot adopt a head-in-the-sand policy. Europe needs to have a voice in the world, it needs to have a presence, and it needs to resolve the problems that exist now, whether that means climate change, combating illegal immigration or combating nuclear proliferation. We need to tackle these problems.
The Lisbon Treaty, and this is a key question, ladies and gentlemen, gives us the tools and power to do this; obviously there will then have to be the political will to do this, but in this Treaty we have the tools to improve the current situation.
Allow me to say something about building, about doing things together. As I said before, this is Europe. Supporting the Lisbon Treaty means doing things together, following the same path. It is true, as I said before, that we have abandoned some things. Paul Valéry, who was a great poet, and therefore perhaps also a great European, said that a poem is never finished, only abandoned. It is true that we have abandoned some things, but it is also true that, in the future, if we need to recover them, the European Parliament will be in the vanguard."@en1
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