Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of my group, I wish to welcome the Commission’s work programme for 2001. This complements the legislative programme which, on my group’s initiative, Parliament requested as a condition for approving the Commission’s appointment. The programme has not been short on proposals: there are 485, 155 of which date from last year and which have been carried over. It must be pointed out that last year 50% of the programme was successfully concluded. You do not need to make many proposals; instead, you should try to bring those that you do propose to a successful conclusion. I should also like to point out, once again, that an agreement was in place, establishing that the programme would be presented in January, following consultations with Parliament’s committees. It is to be hoped that next year you will be more successful in meeting the deadlines. I repeat that the crucial question raised in this programme is undoubtedly the involvement of Europe’s citizens in the European project, which is the mark and the essential prerequisite of its success. This means that together we must address the issues concerning our citizens, such as the economic and social agenda, which we shall be discussing in March, food safety, the introduction of the euro as the cash currency, and the fight against organised crime, not forgetting the Millennium Round. I wish to state that my group firmly supports the Commission’s everything but arms initiative, which will enable the 48 poorest countries in the world to export a limitless range of products. These are the key aspects of the programme. We have, nevertheless, been the target of criticism, which we must accept and address. One criticism that has been made concerns the way in which the bureaucrats in Brussels have dealt with the mad cow issue. I think that here too we must defend the Commission and Parliament and say that for several years we have done our duty, we predicted this crisis and we must continue to insist not only on the investigation into those responsible, but on the need to respond to the concerns of our fellow citizens. Creating a single market is not just a matter of deregulating and of eliminating rules that protect citizens, in a quest for limitless profits. Creating a single market is also about endeavouring to guarantee essential services and also, in a context of greater competition and freedom, to do so in a civilised way. This point is worth remembering, because it appears that at the moment, the only aspect being discussed is the virtue of deregulation and not the virtues which must also feature in a civilised society. With regard to governance, Mr President, what is required more than a reflection, which is currently very fashionable and rather ethereal when it comes to new forms, is to take up the tried and tested democratic practices which enable us to understand the messages of Pericles, 2500 years ago, for example. I would ask you, instead of speaking to us in very general terms, to put forward a specific proposal in this context of reflection on the debate, in which the Commission, on the basis of the work by the University Institute of Florence, proposes treaties that are simplified, simple and comprehensible. We need proposals that will save President Havel from having a suitcase full of treaties, protocols and annexes in his office. This is what we need. We also need a Commission proposal on the distribution of competences and on how the Charter can be incorporated. This means talking about everything, in other words, putting forward a very wide-ranging proposal. Mr President, I would like you to make fewer generalised appeals to civil society and to speak more with us, its elected representatives, both in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of the Member States. (Applause) I think that what is crucial this year is not to stage a cosy, round-table discussion, or some kind of chat show; what we need to do when we reflect is to see what procedure and what method we should be using. Here, Madam President, I feel I need to make an observation. We regret the fact that no Member of the Council is present. Nevertheless, we do not feel that it is good parliamentary practice to allocate five minutes extra to the European People’s Party in the person of Mr Poettering, because he will have to thank those Members that voted for there being a question to the Commission this month rather than to the Council, as we ourselves had proposed and as it seems will be done in March. This is a fair parliamentary debate and we are seeing a situation in which the terms of the debate are being falsified and the allocation of speaking time between the groups and Members rendered meaningless. We therefore believe that the Council more than anyone should be represented here, as we proposed, in order to explain under what terms it drafted the Annex IV Conference, so that it is neither playing to the gallery nor launching some kind of spontaneous or Soviet-style trial with no legal basis. We therefore feel that it is extremely important, with regard to the structural reflection mentioned by President Prodi, to call for his last proposal to be enacted. In other words, there must be a forum, a conference or a convention with the participation of the Members of the European Parliament, the Commission, the Council, governments and also members of the various Member State parliaments. We need such a conference, not only to discuss the issues, but also to make proposals that can finally be decided on and resolved. I shall end, Madam President, because I have run out of time, by saying to the Commission, which is equipped with the necessary machinery to make proposals, to do so. We will then be able to strengthen an alliance that we consider to be absolutely essential to taking the debate firmly forwards and to providing solutions for the future of European integration.

Political group: PSE