Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-11-Speech-2-042"
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"en.20050111.5.2-042"2
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"Mr President, in defiance of the resolution passed by the majority of my party, the PDS, and of the majority in my group, I support this Constitution. To their ‘no’ I say ‘no’.
As a socialist and a convinced European, I cannot square rejection of the first European Constitution with my conscience. It was through a democratic process that it came into being, and that is itself a first in the history of the European Union; I myself played a part in that as a member of the Convention.
Let me set out the reasons that have led me to this conclusion. For centuries, the peoples of Europe have suffered from imperialistic wars and bitter animosities. To these we are, as we must, putting an end. On that the Constitution sets its seal.
Defining the Union as a community of values, the Constitution enshrines a canon of values ranging from the respect for human dignity, which is the highest good, to justice and solidarity. All these values I count as my own, and I want to do everything I can to see them, in their entirety, actually made real in society.
The Constitution reinforces the rights of citizens; it makes the EU distinctly more democratic, above all, indeed, presenting new opportunities to create a social Europe. The Constitution substantially advances European integration, making the European Union as a whole better prepared to face the future. The Constitution is significantly better than the Treaty of Nice, by which the Union is at present held together in law.
My decision also has to do with the fact that the Left, during the course of the Convention, largely refrained from contributing any practical proposals of its own to the process, and with its failure to come up with any real alternatives to what it now rejects. I find that unacceptable.
Whilst I would like to see a peaceful, democratic and social European Union and to see Europe united, this goal will elude us unless we are prepared to make concessions to one another. I am convinced that Europe will never come into being if the political families declare their own standards to be points beyond which they will not go.
My saying ‘yes’ to the Constitution does not, of course, mean that I wish to gloss over or ignore its defects, and I want to continue to contend for changes in the EU. I will, of course, take up the cudgels against neoliberal policies, and I will also fight against all that tends to turn the European Union into a military power. My particular concern is that we must prevent the European Union from degenerating into an image of the power projected from America, and from its being weakened in economic and social terms by rearmament."@en1
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