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President Prodi's Speech on Europe with passion and conviction at the EP

President,
Honourable Members,

The six months that are drawing to a close have been full of events and ideas.

At the opening sitting on 2 July, I listed 13 legislative proposals that the Commission hoped would go through by the end of this year.

I am happy to note that thanks to the efforts of the Italian Presidency, agreement has been reached on five important items on that list.

I am thinking in particular of the amended Directive on the traceability of MGOs and the framework agreement with the European Space Agency. The latter will give a big boost to our space policy.

The introduction of the Single European Sky and the rules on public procurement are other major achievements of these six months and both will be adopted formally early next year.

Lastly, clear outlines have now emerged on a political agreement on take-over bids, which Parliament will be considering during this part-session.

The Italian Presidency has carried the flame with a keen sense of responsibility for which the Commission is grateful.

For this and for the strenuous efforts they have made I want to express my thanks publicly to the Italian Government -- both political leaders and the whole team, including all those in the various government departments in Italy and the Permanent Representation in Brussels.

The last act of these six months was the summit of heads of State and government that ended in Brussels on Saturday.

The time spent on the Intergovernmental Conference rightly captured the public's attention, but we must not overlook the other important issues on the table that were successfully resolved.

Naturally, the topic I am keenest on is the European Initiative for Growth, which the Council approved unanimously.

This Initiative is the most visible part of a more general plan to stimulate the EU economy. The economic measures adopted by the Council include action to enhance our competitiveness and encourage job creation.

Honourable Members, the opportunity offered by the current recovery needs to be grasped now so we can get the Lisbon agenda moving again. It remains the key strategy for sustainable growth for the continent as a whole.

Lastly, I applaud the agreement reached in the Council on the seven new European Agencies dealing with air, rail and maritime safety, food safety, fisheries control, chemicals and disease prevention and control.

I want to stress the role played by the Commission over the four years this result has taken until now. It is all the more satisfying to reach this outcome as the course has been uphill all the way.

The task was difficult and called for quiet work behind the scenes, but the Commission never doubted we would succeed.

There are two reasons why the agreement on the Agencies is so important.

First, it provides a more flexible and more efficient model for Community structures, a model that will help bring the Union even closer to the people.

Secondly, it is the result of a comprehensive approach that reconciles individual countries' interests, which can hold up or impede progress towards the common interest if they are not brought into harmony.

President,
Honourable Members,

Now for the other major topic of the Brussels summit: I am sad and disappointed at the failure to adopt a constitution for the European Union.

Let us cast our minds back two years to the Laeken European Council and the reasons behind its historic conclusions. It was a matter of responding to a need felt by all: for the Union to be given a sounder and better-structured institutional framework.

At the time the Member States were agreed on three basic points:

• the need to improve the way our institutions functioned in the wake of that night at Nice;
  
  
• the need to rationalise our legislative and institutional procedures. Over the decades they have grown so complex that this has affected the consistency and coherence of the Union's policies and procedures;
  
  
• and lastly, to bring the European integration process and people closer.

The great innovation at Laeken was the Convention, the most ambitious and democratic institutional project in our history.

We invested years of work in the undertaking, bringing together under the same roof 105 delegates from all horizons across Europe -- including national parliaments and governments, representatives of the European Parliament and of the Commission.

The Convention did a good job. After 18 months it presented a draft Constitution that we concluded was a good basis for the Intergovernmental Conference to work on.

And as we have kept repeating, the text needed just a few amendments on certain points, because we were convinced -- and we still are -- that it achieves a delicate balance for the whole system governing and regulating the European Union.

On certain points the Convention's work was excellent. I am thinking of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the arrangements on qualified-majority voting and the allocation of political responsibilities.

Above all I am thinking of the increased role of the European Parliament, to which the draft Constitution finally gives greater powers of decision over the Union's budget.

On other issues, in particular the procedure for amending the Constitution, there was just not enough time.

Lastly, on the issue of the Commission's make-up the principle of one commissioner per Member State was already there in essence. The practical arrangements were not satisfactory, but work to follow up the Intergovernmental Conference sorted this out.

Like every working basis, the Convention's draft was intended to take us forward. But some Member States have used it to take us backwards.

That, Honourable Members, is why I must express sadness and disappointment today.

Last week the European integration project ground to a halt and we all missed a great chance.

But the consequences will not be dramatic if we can keep resolutely to the course set by the Convention.

The problems identified in the Laeken declaration still need solving and the basic text is still the Convention's.

Even though there is no sense in pointing the finger and pinning the blame on any particular national delegation, I must stress that the sole criterion for shaping our institutions cannot be the possibility of blocking decisions.

That is not our role.

The deadlock at Brussels means the Council as a whole failed to reach consensus on a unitary proposal. But sharing the blame is not enough.

People will now have to be told how their future can be looked after better. Alone or together? Divided or united?

The answer is plain to all. We just need to open our eyes.

In line with the Laeken declaration, I still believe the solution cannot lie in a combination of vetoes but in converging interests.

The veto is not an expression of democratic will and our institutions cannot sidestep the rules of democracy.

Honourable Members,

For the time being I realise we are seeking a common solution and this is terribly difficult when there are still so many problems to solve.

But under the circumstances, I am convinced that the right solution will be found with time and patience.

So I hope that future European Councils will come back to the issue of our Constitution with a realistic timetable and a comprehensive approach that we have perhaps lost.

We all need courage and imagination, qualities that great political decisions demand.

Only a few days have gone by since the Brussels summit. It is too early and could be presumptuous to put forward a full response as yet. But we clearly have a duty to give it thought.

Some are thinking about a vanguard of pioneering States breaking new ground in terms of greater cooperation and paving the way for a stronger and more closely integrated Union.

Similar solutions are part of the tradition of European integration. And if we cast our minds back, we see that such solutions emerge in particular when times are toughest.

Today we are at one of those dramatic moments. We need to muster our courage and give it thought.

Honourable Members,

I want to close with a call from the heart.

I ask you to bring your political savvy, your vision and your experience to bear in the service of the first Constitution for a united Europe.

I know many of us in this House see the European Union as the only real answer to the challenges of history and politics.

As the elected representatives of our fellow citizens, you know full well what they think. You know they do not regard Europe as an abstract ideal or a half-baked fantasy but as an historical necessity.

Just step outside our geographical horizons: from a Chinese, Indian or American perspective, the individual countries of our continent grow indistinct and merge. What people see increasingly is Europe as a whole.

Just cast your mind beyond our narrow temporal limits: in the eyes of history, the integration of the whole continent is our nation-states' only chance of survival.

Only a united Europe can give us the strength to maintain and develop our cultures and the regional and local traditions we are so proud of.

If we do not all stand by and defend this Union we have built over the last half-century, we will forgo our autonomy and our influence in the world.

The Union will be the loser, but the biggest losers will be the Member States and our fellow citizens.

If we ignore that logic, we can only end up on the sidelines of history.

Thank you.


For other language versions of the speech, please go to:

http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=SPEECH/03/610|0|RAPID&lg=EN

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