Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will start by asking you to forgive me for arriving late. Life penalises those who arrive too late, unlike the Vice-President, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, who has been a bit lenient in still giving me the opportunity to speak, for which I am very grateful. Speaking on behalf of my group, but also of the German Social Democrats in particular, I want to thank our own government and the Italian Presidency of the Council. Mr Antonione, my expression of gratitude to the Italian Presidency of the Council may perhaps be rather surprising, but it is very emphatic, as I get the impression that the Italian Presidency of the Council is making a respectable effort when it comes to defending the outcome of the Convention and to keep in check a number of foolish courses of action that are evidently dominating the Intergovernmental Conference. I know that my own government, that of the Federal Republic of Germany is currently, in the Intergovernmental Conference, making valiant attempts to talk certain Member States’ governments out of their belief that they do not have to take on board any of the progressive things that the Convention has decided on for Europe and to lead them into the way of compromise. For this, we Members of the European Parliament must be especially grateful, for anything else would gravely endanger the European Union both as it is today and as it will be. I want to pick out two points that we regard as positively essential in their significance. The first has to do with this House’s budgetary rights. It would appear to be the case that a number of finance ministers have persuaded their governmental colleagues – but not, it is to be hoped, the Heads of Government – to limit unanimity on the Financial Perspective and to change over to mere consultation rather than approval, thereby both restricting a right of the European Parliament and also qualifying Parliament’s right to give final approval in the Budget procedure – which is actually the most powerful right that this House possesses in the Budget procedure – by making it a right shared between the Council and Parliament. It would appear that some are determined, as part of the constitution-framing process, to have this core right of the European Parliament in their sights. The only thing one can say to this is that if you want to give Europe a constitution, you cannot be serious in attacking in this way the right to approve the Budget, which is the prerogative of the future main legislative authority, namely the European Parliament. So let me tell you that those who would take an axe to our budgetary rights are taking an axe to the constitution in its entirety, so we in this House would be well advised to send an unambiguous signal to the Intergovernmental Conference to the effect that this is something that Parliament takes very seriously indeed. This leads me to mention a second point. We believe that we have to compromise on the distribution of votes and on the composition of the Commission, and that both sides can and must live with those compromises. It is quite clear to me that the smaller Member States fear that they will be outnumbered. Their fears may or may not be justified; it is not for me to pass judgment on that. Whatever compromise eventually emerges, this House must not lose sight of the fact that, in the next Parliament, there will be 732 MEPs, and that is quite a lot to start with. It is quite possible that, between 2007 and 2009, the number of MEPs in this House will increase to 800. Against the eventuality of further attempts to inflate the number of MEPs, I can tell you that we do not want to become a sort of Chinese People’s Congress; we want to be a working parliament. To this issue too, I ask the Council, its Italian Presidency – which, I know, is trying to get sense to prevail – and the Intergovernmental Conference, to actually find a solution that will enable this Parliament to keep on working. I arrived late and I have spoken for too long, so thank you, Mr President, for everything. (Applause)

Political group: PSE