Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-04-07-Speech-3-021"
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"en.20100407.4.3-021"2
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"Mr President, we are in the presence of a great man today – the President of Europe. He is a man so important that he is beyond criticism, beyond reproach; he is the king of the modern political class. He is the modern-day Zeus, and he intends to rule us from Mount Berlaymont – and woe betide anybody that questions his authority or questions his dignity, as they will face severe punishment!
Indeed, in my case, the last time we met and I had one or two things to say, Parliament imposed the maximum possible fine! I am told that if I say anything which upsets you, then the microphone will be cut off. Well, what price free speech, what price democracy?
You have come back to us today and now, with the approval of Mr Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, you are the head of a new economic government for 500 million people and you have launched your 10-year plan – your wish list. I just wonder whether you have remembered what happened to the last 10-year plan, which was launched in 2000. It was launched in this Parliament to much acclaim and it was a total and utter crippling failure, even before the global recession hit.
In fact, all centralised EU plans fail. Just look at the disastrous, ruinous common fisheries policy. Now your beloved euro has failed; it has failed politically at its first major hurdle. You were not able to come up with a plan at that Summit, and you cannot bail out Greece without the International Monetary Fund coming in to save, at least for the moment, your euro dream.
And yet, Mr Van Rompuy, your plan seems to be that we are losing, we are failing, but let us have more of the same; let us have more Europe; let us have more failure! What really matters is the loss of democracy. You have not been elected. You are not accountable and there is no mechanism for the peoples of Europe to remove you. It was Zeus who kidnapped Europa, and my fear is that you are kidnapping our democracy. You are only here because the Lisbon Treaty went through without the British people being given the referendum that they were promised. As far as we are concerned this is unfinished business. People fought and died so that we could be an independent self-governing democratic nation that was able to hire and fire its leaders. No one who believes in democracy would accept the post of President of the European Union."@en1
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