Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-01-18-Speech-3-250"
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"en.20060118.20.3-250"2
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".
Mr President, first I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their work and what they have tried to achieve with this report. Secondly, and most importantly of all, I would like to thank the Austrian Presidency for having the political courage to take this issue out of the esoteric area and put it back on the political agenda.
One of the most important issues we have to look at – and it follows on from what Mr Bonde has just been saying – is: when is a ‘no’ really a ‘no’? When is it that one country can stop every other country from moving forward? When is it that two countries can prevent other countries from moving forward? The uniqueness of what the European Union has been about is that it has striven to find common ground between very different and varying interests. Just because we have hit a barrier with regard to progress in constitutional change and treaty change aiming at a more efficient and effective way of decision-making, does that mean that we have to stick our heads in the sand, as some of my colleagues would say? The ostrich, whilst it may stick its head in the sand at some stage, is also the fastest runner on the ground.
We have to learn very quickly how to become fast runners to deal with the concerns that people have. Those concerns are not just related to the model of the European Union. Many of those who voted ‘no’ in France or Holland voted that way because of domestic political reasons. They also voted out of fear. As we discovered in Ireland some years ago, there was an irrational fear in some people when they voted ‘no’, a fear of the huge influx of immigrants taking all our jobs, stealing our social welfare and ruining our country. The reality was totally different: integration is possible; common sense and calmness is possible, but most importantly of all, this is true not just within this insular House and not just within national parliaments. Until such time as we convince the citizens and allow them ownership of the European Union project, only then and truly then can we say that we have a citizens’ Europe that rightfully belongs to them."@en1
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