Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-108"
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"en.20001212.6.2-108"2
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"Mr President, the results of Nice are disappointing, unsatisfactory and petty. The Union's ability to act on decisive matters has not been improved. The outcome of the compromises brokered in Nice is not more transparency, it is more cover-up. The democratic credibility of European policy has not been enhanced; on the contrary, the door has been opened to the insidious intergovernmentalisation of European policy and, by extension, to even greater bureaucratisation. We shall, of course, have the post-Nice process – that, at least, is a faint light at the end of the tunnel and we must not underestimate it.
Enlargement has given you, has given us all the same task as Monnet and Schuman had fifty years ago: the task of developing a method, structure and vision for the future of Europe. At that time, this applied to half of Europe; now we must develop it for all of Europe. Enlargement would be a chance to do so, a chance, Mr President-in-Office, which you missed in Nice. That is my main criticism of you. It may well be that Nice prepares the EU for enlargement numerically. But the historic failing of Nice is that your resolutions are not based on any identifiable vision for a Union of 27 Member States. It is this spirit, the spirit of Monnet, Schuman and others, which was missing in Nice and which was sorely needed. Instead, the spirit of Nice clearly amounted to wondering how to block, how to intergovernmentalise, how to be feted at home as the defender of national interests, rather than how to take the European Union forward. If Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer, de Gasperi
had acted thus, we would never have had European Communities and, as a result, we would still not have European Union. President Chirac referred to Heads of Government who point out that public opinion still does not understand or accept more or a different sort of progress. That may well be. But that is because, that is mainly because none of the heads of government has the courage to lead and educate public opinion pro-actively, rather than running along behind it. What is heart-breaking about Europe is that so few of its many leaders are prepared to risk their political career by standing or falling by the unification of Europe."@en1
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