Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-335"
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"en.20060404.24.2-335"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate Mr Takkula on his excellent work and outstanding report. The first thing that I welcome in it is the proposal to change the title of the programme from ‘Citizens for Europe’ to ‘Europe for Citizens’. This inversion of the words encapsulates the whole meaning of the culture that, from now on, should lie at the heart of Community action: the means and not the end for Europe’s peoples to achieve their aspirations.
I am delighted that greater attention is being paid to the citizens and that there is a new-found sensitivity to issues of culture and European identity. This is shown by the fact that the agenda for this plenary session also includes the reports by Mr Hammerstein Mintz, on the opening of Council meetings to the public; Mr Cashman, on access to the institutions’ texts; and Mrs Prets, on the European Capital of Culture.
We in this House therefore have the opportunity – I would even say the duty – to make this Europe more transparent, more democratic, easier to understand and, hence, more acceptable. At such a difficult time in the European integration process as we are now experiencing, when nationalist, separatist tendencies appear to be gaining new legitimacy, disseminating mutual knowledge about our different cultures is certainly a vital means of social integration and of exalting the values that unite us, and it plays a key role in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
To conclude, that is why I think it is important to endow this programme with more substantial, more adequate funding. Mr President, the sense of belonging and feeling European also needs to be developed in Europe’s citizens, who no longer want to be subject to Europe but want to create it instead."@en1
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