Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-24-Speech-3-064"
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"en.20030924.1.3-064"2
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"Mr President, it stands to reason that a European constitution makes sense if it is actually worthy of the name; so, quite certainly, do the plebiscites or referendums that even the treasurer and election campaign manager of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats has called for. Which draft, though, do we see before us? Will this draft by the Convention give us fair and, above all, truly transparent decision-making structures? Will it bring about the unmistakeably clear separation of powers? Will enough decisions be taken by majority vote? Did not the governments brutally force through their positions, as one of the previous speakers, Mr Voggenhuber, put it? Will the small Member States lose out? Will only a few of the large ones gain anything, Mr Rack? Will the European Parliament become fully representative of the people? Can it now call individual Commissioners to account in any real sense? If we cannot, then can, at least, the voters? Are they able to directly elect the Commissioners? Will voters have direct influence on the decisions of the Council? In essence, will there be more direct democracy? John Palmer, of the respected European Policy Centre, and numerous German provincial prime ministers of varying political colours, have for years been saying over and over again, that if a country were constituted in the same way as the European Union, it would not be able, by reason of its lack of democratic legitimacy, to qualify as a Member State of the EU.
Will this new draft now do away with this fundamental deficit? Are our much-valued European regions not left out? What about the right of appeal? Will we now at last have the proximity to the citizens that we have so often invoked? Is the draft so clear and comprehensible that young people will be able to get to grips with it and get some idea of what Europe is? Will it not result in incessant wrangling and party-political horse-trading? A strong social market economy is the key to social peace in Europe – does the constitution contain any of the framework conditions on which that is dependent?
The answer to too many of these questions has to be ‘no’. That is why it now makes sense to convinced Europeans, among whom I number myself, to say ‘no’ to the text that is before us. In any case, there can be no democracy without transparency, and, to this deception, we have to say, ‘no, thank you’."@en1
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