Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-20-Speech-3-023"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20080220.3.3-023"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has taken eight years, two Conventions, three intergovernmental conferences and two draft treaties to achieve the result that we are evaluating today. Allow me at this point, and after this lengthy period, to offer my personal thanks for the opportunity to represent this House in both conventions and to be present both for the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Constitution, together with Andrew Duff, as EP rapporteur. It was for me the greatest honour of my political life. Thank you very much.
The contents and achievements of this Treaty can be seen in detail, and few they are not! The foundation is being laid for the first supranational treaty in history. The most up-to-date and most comprehensive code of fundamental rights is becoming European law. The anchoring of social objectives and rights is pointing the way to the next task: the creation and construction of a European social union. With its own legal personality, the Union is changing from a forum of loosely cooperating states to a historic, independent player. If we want to succeed in reviving this treaty, political unity will need to cease being a project of elites and state chancelleries and become a
.
Today, however, I am not quite sure whether we are aware that we are making this assessment in very difficult and special circumstances in European history. In the latest edition of
I have read the statements by Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, which concluded: ‘Europeans do not want to understand’. Even though I well understand Mr Schulz’s initial instinctive head-shaking, I would like in this case to quote a voice from outside on this. Henry Kissinger describes the disappearance of the nation-state in Europe as the foremost challenge of our time. He writes: ‘The problem now is: nation-states have not just given up part of their sovereignty to the European Union but also part of their vision for their own future. Their future is now tied to the European Union, and the EU has not yet achieved a vision and loyalty comparable to the nation-state. There is, therefore, a vacuum between Europe’s past and Europe’s future.’
This is the best description we have of this Treaty at the moment. It shines a penetrating light on what governments have been doing with the draft Constitution, because these marginal notes and the changes we ourselves have constantly been making to the packaging in order to safeguard the achievements, and then trying to endorse while holding our noses, signify a loss of European spirit and power, creating identity, producing loyalty and winning over citizens. The power to establish new beginnings, create new orders, provide new solutions, again and again, making a new start every day: that is Europe. This power was very much weakened because of the – I will be quite frank here – reactionary attitude of national governments and state chancelleries empowered by the language of the European Constitution and the reforms associated with it. Nor should this awareness desert us in view of the genuine achievements of this Treaty. Having not succeeded in making the citizens sovereigns of the European Union, it is this Parliament’s first task in future to comply with the spirit of this Constitution, to turn the Union into a union of citizens, rather than states, and to find the strength to make a
out of European integration and demonstrate Europe’s strength by creating new identities together with the citizens."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"Der Spiegel,"1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples