Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-24-Speech-2-012"
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"en.20080624.3.2-012"2
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"Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the President-in-Office on the achievements of his country’s Presidency.
It would do us no harm to re-read the Laeken Declaration, which summed up so poignantly the problem we face in overcoming the gap between the governed and the governors.
If problems with the Lisbon Treaty overshadowed Slovenia’s Presidency, they were not of its own making. Indeed there is some poetic justice in the country which first caused the problem on 29 May 2005 now having to help find a solution, 37 months later. The ‘Sky Team’ of Sarkozy and Klaus will have to decide on progress up to the next European elections, and the formation of the next Commission.
I hope that the Council meeting last weekend has proved helpful in recognising that we need to prioritise people issues, particularly in the field of civil law and in protecting people from oil and food price rises; and in upholding the right of the Presidency, irrespective of the size of the Member State, to invite whomsoever they want to supper!
Some may have had the impression that it was just the warm-up act for the next Presidency, but those who delve more deeply know that solid progress has been made and that Slovenia has indeed left its mark upon our Union.
In justice and home affairs, the Slovenian Presidency has extended the freedom of the Schengen area to new Member States, struck a deal to improve the Schengen information system, achieved political agreement on Europol and, most importantly, seen through a directive which is the first building block in a common immigration policy.
I hope we will learn the lesson that such building blocks need to be better explained, for it met with substantial public resistance, but my Group was nonetheless pleased to support it and sees it as a great step forward.
In agriculture, the Presidency concluded a Health Check to modernise and simplify the CAP; it oversaw measures to reduce inflationary pressure on food prices and, in economic policy, created a fifth freedom – that of the movement of knowledge. It also established a mobile satellite services system, an instrument which is to be signed today.
The Consumer Credit Directive, the goods package, the Customs Code, the Postal Directive and the directive on environmental protection under criminal law can all be added to the Council Presidency’s achievements.
My Group is pleased to see some progress on the Western Balkans, with the signing of stabilisation and association agreements with Serbia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we congratulate you on your role in the establishment of a new government in Belgrade.
If the Council Presidency has not been successful in tackling growing public disillusion with the European Union, it is not unique in that. The anger at the endless motorcades and police cars on the streets of Ljubliana is symptomatic of a wider unease. We need to demonstrate that we are the servants of the people, and not their masters.
We know that the Irish people are disillusioned not with their own government, but with the institutions of the European Union. As France Prešeren says in ‘The Master Theme’: ‘They were all fed on many a plaint and tear … As over them Malignant storm-clouds flew.’"@en1
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"(Applause from the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe)"1
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