Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-18-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20080618.2.3-012"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have always said that what the European Union needs is a short constitution, with a charter of binding rights, democratic and transparent decision-making procedures, limited but genuine powers and the requisite economic resources. Such a constitution, ladies and gentlemen, should be drawn up by this House or by a constituent assembly, upheld with vigour and conviction, without hypocrisy, and ratified by the parliamentary method or in a European referendum.
I have great respect for the wishes of the Irish people, but no one will ever convince me that a referendum in which half of the electorate turned out is more democratic than parliamentary ratification. If the majority of peoples and states vote yes, one goes ahead, and those who vote no can cheerfully remain outside and negotiate a system of new, looser relations, as the Spinelli Treaty of 1984 put it.
What has happened in recent years? The Member States and the Commission have gone down the road of a complicated, contradictory treaty that is difficult to sell and, in the final stages, was negotiated in secret, in haste, and made even more illegible by its exemptions and protocols. Meanwhile they decided that it had to be ratified unanimously, exactly like the gardener’s dog that neither eats cabbage itself nor lets anybody else.
As if that were not enough, the European Union is continuing to adopt misguided, weak policies, such as the Jackson directive yesterday and the Weber report today, which are incapable of offering us any positive prospects or hope. This is a Union where everything from workers' rights to environmental protection to migrants' rights is given less and less consideration, where industrial lobbies count for more than citizens, where the European interest is lost, buried beneath the howls of one government or another, where freedom of choice and individual liberties or the arrival of new Europeans are seen as an unbearable attack on the identity of populations which, like those of Italy and Ireland, have migrants scattered in every part of the world.
It is possible, and perhaps also desirable, that the countries having yet to ratify will do so. It may be that the Irish Government will come up with a brilliant proposal. But a diplomatic solution is not enough! A diplomatic solution is not enough. Now more than ever we need to state loud and clear that the Europe of governments – opaque and obscure – is the Europe that has failed: the one that rejected the constitution and is continuing to pursue misguided, conservative, narrow-mindedly nationalist and egotistical policies; the one that put paid to the spirit of the 2003 European Convention, ending up instead with an agreement on a positive but minimalistic, soulless text.
However, none of this makes a more democratic, proactive, united Europe any less necessary. What is needed today is an initiative stemming from our political strengths and from those Member States which are convinced of the need for a more efficient, more democratic, more cohesive Europe, given that it is now no longer necessary or possible to continue with the Treaty of Nice. Such an initiative will have no scope for those unwilling to move forward."@en1
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