Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-18-Speech-2-062-000"
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"en.20110118.6.2-062-000"2
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, though this may appear somewhat incongruous here, in the plenary hall of the European Parliament, I would nonetheless like to start my speech with a quote from a great North American thinker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, and I quote:
We cooperated with all parties, obviously with Parliament and the Commission, but also with the new permanent President of the Council, the High Representative and, of course, with Member States, but I believe I can say that, throughout all of our tenure, we paid particular attention to working constructively, and with an open mind, with Parliament, whose powers have been significantly strengthened under the new rules.
Some modesty would be fitting today, of course, but I have to say that, together with you, we ensured that this method was successful. Moreover, ladies and gentlemen, today, more than ever, the Union represents an interplay between institutions and Member States. I think that this method has worked and that it can continue to work, because it was and is focused on results and not on image building. This applies to our Presidency, but it also, in fact, applies to the European Parliament, although you must be the judge of that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here, I would nevertheless like to express my appreciation and gratitude for your cooperation, on behalf of the Belgian Government and on behalf of my colleagues who have held the rotating Presidency. I believe I can say that most of the agreements we reached were ultimately adopted with a very broad majority. This is a testament to the quality of your debates and – and this should reassure European citizens – the priority you have placed on what is good for Europe, placing it far above national interests.
However, ladies and gentlemen, those six months are over. Of course, we cannot dwell on the past. Over the coming months and years, we will actually have more to do than ever, because our Union, our society, is facing exceptionally great challenges. I would now like to mention them in brief.
The first challenge, obviously, lies in the continuity of what we have started over the past six months, namely, economic governance. Since those six months began, we have worked together to take the measures necessary to avert a crisis in the euro area. However, countering the symptoms that have been in evidence so far is not enough. The threats which a number of the countries in the euro area have been facing have shown that a monetary union cannot, in fact, work on its own without an economic union, without greater economic convergence. We must therefore press on with determination along the road of greater economic cohesion, more cohesion in the fiscal, economic and social policies of Member States.
Economic governance also requires rigorous monitoring of the budgetary and structural policies of the Union’s Member States. We need to make full use of the European Semester which was established with that purpose in mind. A return to budgetary discipline should not just be a non-binding target; it must be verifiable and, if necessary, enforceable at a European level. This is obviously not about discipline for its own sake; sound public finances are an absolute necessity if we are to establish sustainable growth again, a credible growth that creates jobs for our citizens. Those jobs are, of course, essential for the maintenance of our very specifically European social model, which goes hand in hand with political and economic freedom, social solidarity and ecological responsibility.
The Union must use the new instruments that it is introducing in order to monitor the financial markets efficiently. These instruments are supposed to be ready for use by the end of this year. That is an absolute must in order to prevent any new derailments of the markets.
Economic convergence, monitoring of the national budgetary and structural policy options, new instruments for financial market monitoring – all of this may give the impression that the apparatus of the Union is on the way to becoming pretty heavy-going and complicated. Of course, it is also to be expected that closer monitoring of the national political decisions of the Member States will not proceed without discussions and sources of friction. Yet that should not put us off, as it forms part of the essence of European integration.
The second field in which we must do this – in which we must keep up the momentum – is that of the Union’s role in the world. We have made progress in that field. Thanks to our concerted preparation and unified representation, we have indeed increased our weight in the G20. In the last months, the Union has started to build its own diplomatic representation all over the world. These moves are good but they have to be consolidated.
The European Union, it is true, speaks with one voice on most problems in the world, but words are not enough. The Union must indeed develop more clout, it must be able to act in a decisive manner and to become a real pole of influence and power in this multipolar world.
‘Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail’.
Thirdly, we have to address the financial perspective of the Union. It is true that this is not a time when governments can contemplate hefty increases in their contributions to the Union budget, but neither can we avoid a debate on the long-term financial perspective.
Promises have been made to this Parliament that there will be consultation on the philosophy of the Union’s future financing and on ways and means. The Union cannot live hand-to-mouth: it has to have this long-term perspective.
Last but not least, I want to say that we will be able to deliver on these challenges only if, more than ever, we believe in ourselves. I would like to quote the French thinker and writer, André Frossard, on this challenge for the coming years. I will first quote in French, and then translate:
‘Europe quite rightly wants to equip herself with a common policy and currency but, most of all, she needs a soul’.
Europe quite rightly wants to equip herself with a common policy and currency but, most of all, she needs a soul’.
We do indeed need a soul, colleagues. We need to have faith in ourselves and in what we have accomplished, and not to excuse ourselves for who and what we are. We need to remember that, before being a market, before being a currency, before being a set of institutions, the Union – our Union – was a vision, a belief, a dream. It was a dream of peace on this continent, which has been torn by so many wars.
I have heard that it has become a little bit
to speak of peace to generations in Europe who have never known war. I can only say: ‘Look around you’. Watch all the refugees, for instance, who come to us fleeing war, fleeing armed conflicts, fleeing tyranny. Those refugees certainly do not look down on the achievement that it is to have spread peace and security across almost the entire continent. And those refugees – those people – aspire, like so many people elsewhere in the world, to the rights and freedoms which too many of our citizens take so easily for granted.
As much as the Union is about peace, it is also about liberty, about democracy, about fundamental civil rights and about the rule of law, for our citizens as well as for our immigrants. We believe in the right of each person to human dignity, which means people’s right to live on their feet and not on their knees, and the right to think and speak and worship freely.
In a much quoted statement, Jean Monnet said that nothing gets done without people, but that nothing lasts without institutions. This is just as true today as when he said it but, on the other hand, it is also true that institutions will wither if they are not carried by people with strong convictions. We must remember that we will carry our citizens with us only if we give them a vision: if we give them a dream.
To conclude, I wish Hungary all possible success now that it has taken over the baton of the Presidency. I am sure it will hold high the torch of the European dream of peace, the European dream of freedom, and the aim of an ever stronger Union.
In other words: ‘Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail’.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what we have done, with you all, these last six months. Belgium, my country, was called upon to assume the rotating Presidency of the European Union after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon.
It is true that we were not venturing into totally unknown territory but, even so, it was necessary to establish the criteria for the new functioning of the European Union under the new Treaty, with the new institutions with which the European Union has equipped itself. Therefore, true to the Belgian tradition, the tradition of my country, we did our utmost to enable the institutions to function optimally to create the right precedents.
Ladies and gentlemen, I feel able to say to you that the European Union, as it was structured under the Treaty of Lisbon, functions today and functions well. The Union has equipped itself with a new instrument for the supervision of the financial sector, which should hopefully prevent the re-emergence of crises like the one we are still struggling to extricate ourselves from. Economic governance has advanced. Agreement has been reached on the 2011 budget and, most importantly, in total, in those six months, almost forty agreements of a legislative nature were concluded between Parliament and the Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, our determination to respect both the letter and the spirit of the Treaty of Lisbon was a choice for the future of the Union, an investment in ever closer European cooperation. To achieve this, during this Presidency, we followed two major guidelines.
First, we did not want to push ourselves forward. Instead, we incorporated our programme, the Belgian programme with its five priorities, into the European agenda, into the programme of the Commission, into the momentum generated by the Heads of State or Government at the level of the European Council, into the programme of the troika with our Spanish and Hungarian colleagues.
Secondly, ladies and gentlemen, as well as not wanting to impose a Belgian agenda, we opted for what I would call an inclusive Presidency. We effectively tried to cooperate as closely as possible with all the European institutions, respecting the letter and spirit of the Treaty of Lisbon and playing a role that was actually no more than that of facilitator."@en1
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