Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-03-Speech-3-034"
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"en.20081203.12.3-034"2
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"Mr President, last time we met we praised the Council’s speedy response to the financial crisis. But for this European Council, speed seems no longer to be of the essence. Well, it should be. The challenges facing our Union are real. The recession is smothering businesses and climate change grows ever more stark.
We need the Council and the Commission to acknowledge what Martin Luther King called ‘the fierce urgency of now’. Yesterday, our finance ministers failed to grasp the urgency of the recovery plan. The stimulus impulse is changing from sugar to treacle. The Presidency should tell us which Member States were against. We have got to stay within the Stability and Growth Pact, maintain competition and state aid rules and meet the challenge of the Lisbon Agenda, but we have got to act fast.
The Council will, of course, search for a legally binding framework to cut carbon emissions. There has been progress: cap and trade, not regulation and burden, derogations for small-scale emitters, sensitivity to individual states’ circumstances and a sliding scale for carbon auctioning – all these are reasonable. What would not be reasonable is any attempt by any Member State to shoot down a long-term plan for short-term self interest. If we do not tackle climate change now, the bill will balloon. Last week’s deal on CO
from cars shows how easy it is to take the path of least resistance, to let vested interests get ahead of global interests. There will be costs in a climate-change deal, but there are opportunities too. Europe can lead the world in green innovation. The prizes go to the bold and Europe must have the courage of its convictions.
Last week, the Irish published a thoughtful report on options for the Treaty of Lisbon. Now the Taoiseach must come forward with a concrete plan and a clear time frame for moving forward, because Europe’s citizens want an effective European Union. You will never convince anyone to have more confidence in our Union if it does not work. And we saw last week an example of the Union not working. Members of this House who escaped last week’s bombings in Mumbai were met by an EU consul who told them he would help only citizens from his own country. Nothing shows more the urgent need for coordinated EU consular protection.
Our Union must protect all its citizens in their time of need. The Commission President has said ‘we sink or swim together’. Well, some may prefer to tread water, but Europe has done that before and it does not work. We need action now from the European Council."@en1
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"2"1
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