Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-02-15-Speech-3-086"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060215.9.3-086"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Republic of Austria, it is a great honour for me to welcome you to our Parliament.
We are all pleased to have you here amongst us as President of the country holding the Presidency of the Council of the Union. Before you took on the Presidency of your country, many Members of this Parliament including myself, and some who have greeted you in the aisles had the opportunity to meet you during your long career as a distinguished parliamentarian and President of the Austrian Parliament. In all of your duties you have demonstrated your undeniable commitment to Europe, to European values, to Austria’s cause in Europe and to Europe’s cause in the world.
Your visit to the European Parliament today offers us the opportunity to express the great respect we feel for you and pay homage to your considerable personal achievements, and those of your country, and its special place in the history and culture of Europe, as well as Austria’s contribution to the recent development of the Union and the debate on its future.
You are taking up your post, Mr President, during what is unquestionably a complex stage in Europe’s history, during which we must face significant challenges. We are dealing with some of them here in our Chamber during this part-session.
In a short space of time, the Austrian Presidency has shown that it is perfectly aware of the circumstances in which it is taking up the Presidency of the Council of the Union and of the need to restore the citizens’ faith in the European project, promoting integration and consolidating enlargement, and more specifically, ensuring that we make optimum use of the period of reflection we are in so that, at the end of it, we can revitalise the process of creating a constitution.
Few countries are in as good a position as Austria to confront these challenges. Austria was on the periphery of the Union of 15, but now it is at the heart of the Europe of 25, which will soon be a Europe of 27 or more. You are increasingly at the heart of the greater Europe.
For Austria and the Austrians, therefore, the free movement of goods, workers and services is not merely a formal provision of the Treaty that does not affect them. On the contrary, it is a genuine everyday reality. You are at the meeting point of all of Europe’s roads. We are therefore looking to you and your government, because we hope that over the coming months you will contribute to moving the Union forward in a spirit of integration based on our founding values and objectives.
Mr President, we consider ourselves fortunate to have you here amongst us and we hope that you will play a decisive role in determining the direction that the future of Europe is to take. You may rest assured you and the Austrian Government that the European Parliament will work to defend and promote the common European objective, while at all times taking account of the European citizens’ perception of it.
Mr President, it is now a great honour for me to ask you to take the floor before the European Parliament."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples