Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-03-Speech-3-039"
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"en.20081203.12.3-039"2
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"Madam President, a picture is beginning to emerge of how a putrid compromise is to be reached with Ireland to get it to accept the Treaty of Lisbon. I have seen everything here in this House from manipulation to barely concealed threats along the lines of ‘Just who do you think will lose a Commissioner, given that we have to implement what it says in the Treaty of Nice about there being fewer Commissioners than Member States? I have heard talk from prominent opinion formers of throwing Ireland out of the Union, including, even, from a newspaper editor in my own country. It was decided at the Conference of the Presidents not to submit the decision about Ireland and the Treaty of Lisbon reached in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to a debate and a vote in plenary. Nonetheless, the committee concluded in its meeting on Monday that that very decision would form the basis of the President’s, and thus Parliament’s, official position. Parliament, however, cannot have a common position on this issue.
When the vote about this decision took place, there were 16 in favour and 6 against. This, especially given the failure to hold a debate in the Chamber, is a very slender basis on which to produce a common position. It is outrageous for democracy to be seen to be brushed aside in this House, the same House in which we are so fond of waving our fingers in the air whilst moralising about countries without democracy and in which we honour those who champion democracy with what we dare to call the Sakharov Prize. The way forward for a democratic Europe is not putrid compromises, paltry promises and immoral threats. The way forward is a fair and open debate.
In the few Member States where the establishment has dared to hear what the people think, the answer has been a clear rejection of both the Constitution and the Treaty – a ‘no’ vote in France, in the Netherlands and in Ireland. What more is needed before Parliament wakes up and sees that we are completely out of touch with our electorates? Where are all the cockerels that puff themselves up and threaten the Irish and the Czechs? Do they not dare meet the voters and allow them to be the judges of this vision for Europe?"@en1
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