Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that this House will today back the Convention’s draft, and do so by a large majority. We agree overwhelmingly that the best thing about the Convention was that it was not an Intergovernmental Conference. It was largely parliamentary in character, it was held in public, it engaged in dialogue with the public and civil society, and it had many months in which to do its work. The worst thing about the Convention was that it ended up turning into an Intergovernmental Conference after all. Its conclusion was determined by negotiations and haggling behind the scenes, with nations’ own interests being played off against the European interest, and threats of vetoes being used. The Convention was successful when it was free. It followed constitutional logic in producing a draft on the future of Europe. Out of it emerged the draft of a European democracy, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a republican legal order for Europe, capacity to act and the possibility of a new role in the world. Success eluded the Convention whenever it bowed to governmental pressure and lost itself in a thicket of conflicting interests. Hence we have no European social contract, no European social order, too few decisions taken by majority vote and we still, among other things, have laws made by the Council. The question at issue was not what we could do for Europe, but what we could deny Europe. Many governments are now calling for a ‘real’ Intergovernmental Conference; this is a dangerous threat, and one founded on very dubious legitimacy. Mathematically speaking, a plus and a minus add up to a minus. Where is the sense in forcing as chronically unsuccessful a method as an Intergovernmental Conference upon one so successful as the Convention? The outcome, the end result, of this simple arithmetic will be that of an IGC, a ‘Nice Mark II’ – not the highest common denominator, but the lowest, and were the governments not represented at the Convention, and at the highest level? Did they not brutally force through their positions? Were you not at the Convention, Commissioner Barnier? Did you not agree to a great compromise? Can the Commission really take on the historic responsibility of enabling the governments to unilaterally change this historic consensus for the sake of their own interests? In doing so, are you not enabling the forces of destruction to absolve themselves? Commissioner, your place is alongside the European Parliament as it fights for this compromise. You will have to answer for that; it is perhaps the gravest error in the whole of its period in office for which the Commission will have to account. What can the Intergovernmental Conference do without demolishing this consensus, without – behind closed doors – perpetuating the same old horse-trading that we saw at Nice? It should accept the Convention’s draft, it should deal, in the spirit of the majority in the Convention, with those issues that the governments blocked, those on which there is no consensus, especially the revision clause. That was something on which the Convention could come to no agreement; the Intergovernmental Conference should make it possible for future amendments to the Constitution to be made by a democratic majority. It should, moreover, resolve the inconsistencies between parts 1 and 3, which are largely the result of governmental intervention. If we promise the people the social market economy in part 1, but the free, untrammelled competitive society in part 3, then we are not being honest with the public. If we promise full employment in part 1, but only a high level of employment in part 3, that amounts to a trick, and it will not build confidence in Europe. If, at this historic moment, we make the wrong choice, we will be leading Europe into a crisis. If, after wrecking the methodology of the Intergovernmental Conference, we go on to wreck and discredit the methodology of the Convention, we will be left with nothing. What will we then be able to do when the crisis strikes? Hard though this compromise may have been for all of us, we should defend the Convention on the future of Europe. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE