Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the summit at Laeken can be an historic one. Our group has every faith in the Belgian Presidency, because Belgium has always been faithful to the ideal of European unification and, above all, because Belgium has always stood for the European Community approach. We, in the Group of the do not want Europe to be governed by a few great nations, but, rather, we want Europeans to work together, we want the European Community approach, and so we wish you, Mr President-in-Office, great success. (Applause) Both you and the President of the Commission have spoken about the enlargement, and the memory is still fresh in my mind of a conference with the leaders of our related parties from the acceding countries, that is to say, from the countries desirous of joining the European Union. Following on the French foreign minister's highly misleading statements, we declare loud and clear that we must not give the impression that those who will be ready to sign the Treaties in the coming year will have to wait for the stragglers also to comply with the criteria. Each country must be judged on its own merits; it is on this basis that we must proceed with the enlargement of the European Union. At Laeken, you will no doubt be considering Afghanistan, which is indeed necessary, and we repeat that it is necessary to destroy the al-Qaeda terrorist networks. Now, though, we must also create the basis on which the international community, comprising the European Union, the USA, and the Arab and Muslim world, will now help Afghanistan to rebuild itself, making it possible for a humane society to come into being there, with a government in Kabul that respects human rights, including the rights of women. It is that task that is before us in the days and weeks ahead. I would like to comment on the Middle East. We urge all the parties involved to return to the negotiating table. I am being very restrained in my use of language when I say that we greatly regret the way that the Prime Minister of Israel behaved towards the visitors from the European Union. These were Mr Verhofstadt, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission, Mr Michel, the Foreign Minister and Council President and also Mr Solana, the High Representative. We have no patience with the way that the Israeli Prime Minister treated our delegation to Israel – and I can remember some of Israel's great Prime Ministers, such as Ben Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin. (Applause) We encourage the Commission and the Council to keep to the course they have set. We will always defend Israel's security, as we have always done in the past, but the people in Palestine are as much entitled to human dignity and a life lived in security, as are the Israelis, who rightly lay claim to that for themselves. (Applause) Let me make another comment on the Convention. We have high hopes for what you will be deciding at Laeken. The composition of the Convention is, numerically at least, well-known. I beg you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to use all your influence to ensure that the fifteen government representatives are the sort of people who will work together in the Convention and will feel themselves bound by whatever proposal for a decision results from it, so that the governments, too, will be made to discharge their duties with regard to what the Convention brings into existence. For the Convention is not some kind of seminar, so – if, at the end of it, we are to be able to say more than just Yes or No, and I know perfectly well that the governments want that to be the case – the Convention must come up with something so convincing that it will be binding on the governments. Our group will, in any case, be sending its best and most experienced people to the Convention, so that we can achieve a real result. We also echo President Prodi's demand and beg you to make your influence felt in order to make it possible for the Convention to start as early as possible in 2002 – in February or early March under the Spanish Presidency – and then be concluded under the Italian Presidency at the end of 2003, giving us, by then, a new Treaty ready for signature, on which we can then have very comprehensive and repeated discussions here in Parliament. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, what I am saying reflects my profound conviction that Laeken is such an important summit precisely because it will be about the future direction of our European Union, about whether we carry on the way we did at the mini-summit in London, with seven countries taking part, eight countries not taking part, and the European Commission not even present, that is not how we envisage Europe. On the contrary, Europe is for us the European Community. It is our wish that you, the Council Presidency and the Commission make Laeken an expression of this Community, and if you do that, you will have our entire support. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE