Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-05-06-Speech-3-435"
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"en.20090506.41.3-435"2
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"Mr President, I take it for granted that we are all entitled to speak for as long as we like. I might need an extra minute or two, and I shall be happy to take it.
I will now switch to my own language. The European political establishment’s handling of the Treaty of Lisbon will go down to posterity as a disgrace in two respects: firstly, with regard to the political process for pushing it through and, secondly, with regard to the actual purpose of the treaty and its content. If we look back to Laeken 2000, it was said there that we should produce a proposal for a constitutional solution. This was to lead to us having a closer-knit Europe and citizens who were committed, as we were concerned that, in practice, citizens had a poor opinion of the EU. The Convention, under the leadership of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, produced something quite different. The people of Europe did not want this, and the people of France and the Netherlands said ‘no’. Everyone knows that people in the United Kingdom, Denmark and many other countries would have voted ‘no’ if they had been given the chance. Attempts were made to find a way round this – a new treaty appeared which is the same but, when it suits, is claimed not to be, and this claim continues to be adhered to. It is now the case that, when the people of Ireland said ‘no’ to what we are now calling the Treaty of Lisbon, we have the gall the carry out an investigation into the reason why the people of Ireland voted incorrectly. This is quite incredible, and there has been absolutely no debate about it. You are all patting each other on the back and saying how good this is, despite the fact that you know it is a disgrace.
My second objection is this: a constitutional treaty, a constitution, does not exist to make it quicker to take political decisions. Quite the opposite in fact – it exists to make it more difficult to take political decisions. Constitutions are there to ensure that those who simply happen to be elected right now cannot make whatever decisions they want to. It should be complicated. This is what the American Constitution is like. This is a French bureaucratic tradition to ensure that an authority can quickly take decisions on anything under the sun without needing to worry about public influence. This is appalling and a disgrace to the EU."@en1
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