Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-17-Speech-4-180-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20111117.17.4-180-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, it is instructive to compare the American and European constitutions.
The US Constitution is 7 200 words long. The European, in the form of the Lisbon Treaty, is 78 000 words long. The US Constitution is concerned with broad principles, such as the balance between federal and state jurisdictions; the European equivalent busies itself with such minutiae as policy on space exploration and the status of refugees.
The American Declaration of Independence holds out the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The European equivalent – the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms – guarantees our right to strike action, affordable housing and free healthcare. The one is about the freedom of the individual, the other about the power of the state.
All nations, all unions, grow according to the DNA that was encoded at their conception. It was the good fortune of the American Republic to be founded in a popular revolt against a remote government and therefore to impregnate its institutions with a sympathy for the maximum dispersal of power.
The European Union’s tragedy is that it was founded from the opposite imperative. Line 1 of Article 1 of the Treaty of Rome commits us to establish an ever closer Union. Our present doom was ordained from the first."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples