Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-20-Speech-2-020"
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"en.20060620.6.2-020"2
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".
Mr President, first of all I want to put on record my thanks to Chancellor Schüssel, to Secretary-of-State Winkler and to all the Ministers and the Permanent Representative from Austria for their tremendous work over the last six months.
As you can see, Chancellor, despite the fact that you took on board some of the ideas Parliament spoke about; despite the fact that you included parliamentarians with regard to decision-making; you still get criticised for not being here enough or for not doing enough within Parliament. However, being familiar with parliamentary democracy yourself, you know that eaten bread is soon forgotten and it is good to hold back some of the spicy and sugary stuff until the very end of the Presidency!
When we look at the Council meeting and the results from it, there have been some successes. However, the most important area which has been outlined during the Austrian Presidency has been one of realism, of doing things that are achievable, of not ignoring problems that are there and trying to build a consensus to try and solve them, as well as taking the sensible attitude that this cannot be solved just in six months. It requires a longer approach; it requires more involvement of other presidencies; it requires more involvement of other Member States.
I think that one of the biggest difficulties that we face within the European Union is when we speak about speaking to citizens, when we talk about speaking to citizens in Parliament, who is best placed to speak to the citizens? Who has the best capacity to ensure citizens understand exactly what is happening at a European level?
With all due respect to the oratorical elegance and linguistic ability of the President of the Commission, and all of my colleagues within the groups here in Parliament, I would be useless speaking to a German audience with regard to what Europe does for them. But I am convinced that I can bring the majority of Irish people on board with me, and in every other Member State it is the same thing. Irish representatives, Finnish representatives, German representatives, Austrian representatives, French representatives must speak to people to tell them what is required. But they must speak with honesty, not using double-speak or with forked tongues. We have already seen that in France and in Holland during the referendums on the Constitution. People were throwing out ideas saying the Services Directive was going to destroy the European social model – a complete lie! A lie that was perpetrated by people simply for political means.
Now I have no difficulty with having a political argument on ideology with anybody. But if we are going to speak about the future of Europe, then that future has to be based on honesty, on facts. I think one of the biggest dangers that we face for the future is that we have failed our citizens and failed our people in terms of telling them exactly how successful Europe has been, how good it has been for them not only in peace, stability and prosperity, but also in bringing about political stability, in ensuring equality between men and women, in guaranteeing minimum rights for workers, minimum rights for people who are most in need and most at risk within our societies. We still have more to do, but at least we have made a positive start to it.
The last point that I would make is that we should avoid using the
Article 42. I know it is an important issue for President Barroso and for others to try to move away from unanimity where it is not possible to get it, but if you do that you further alienate not only governments, but the people as well: people who see Europe as an autocratic body trying to force its own will on others."@en1
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