Mr President, President of the Commission, President-in-Office of the Council, first and foremost, the next meeting must take stock of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference which opened last Saturday in Rome. In my opinion, the result is favourable on the whole: the adopted text gives us good cause for hope after the pessimistic forecasts beforehand. I, personally, am optimistic, having experienced the Convention’s shilly-shallying, problems and difficulties; I am absolutely convinced that no one will want to take responsibility for letting two years work fail, no one will want to take political responsibility for failing to give Europe the Constitution that 450 million citizens are expecting. Of course, no substantial compromise should be made on the Constitution text; of course, small adjustments will have to be made, but the balance of the Constitution should remain as it is. What adjustments can be made? I firmly believe that the areas where majority voting is used should be extended: unanimity is an obstacle; it is a concrete pillar blocking the EU’s progress. I also firmly believe that a compromise can be reached on the number of Commissioners: in my view, the countries that will be part of the EU from 2004 should be represented from the outset; subsequently, we could see if we could get round the problem by using Commissioners without portfolio, but I feel that, to start with, there has to be a Commissioner for each of the countries that will be a Member of the EU. Then, of course, I also firmly believe that an explicit reference to Europe’s Judaeo-Christian roots should be written into the preamble to the Constitution. I would also like to pause a moment to praise the Italian Presidency – as Mr Barón Crespo has just done. A commitment was made in the Chamber in Strasbourg to ensuring that the European Parliament was represented at the Intergovernmental Conference: this has been the case and can be seen as a success for this House. I am sure that Parliament will be able to continue to make a useful contribution during the debate. The second issue, Mr President, is reviving the economy. Yesterday – and we can only welcome this – Ecofin gave the go-ahead for the first step in implementing the trans-European networks: these are major plans that will create new jobs as well as making our regions and our countries more competitive. When prioritising, President-in-Office of the Council, I believe that we need to focus clearly on a Europe that is going from the West towards the East, but also at the Europe which is looking from the North to the South. We can only revive the economy by pursuing the Lisbon process: raising the retirement age is a necessary reform, we need to give an answer to our children so that there is a system which guarantees their future in 10, 20, 30, 40 years’ time. Furthermore, I also agree with Mr Prodi on the issue of research: this is a commitment made by the current President-in-Office of the Council in his speech in Strasbourg, and I firmly believe that the future of our economy depends on promoting investment in research as well. Turning now to the final issue, immigration, it cannot be a national issue. Italy has 700 km of coastline, which is not just the Italian border, but also Europe’s southern border. Because of this, there is absolutely no doubt about the fact that it is the EU’s duty not only to take on some organisational responsibility, in terms of policing measures, but also to shoulder economic responsibility in this regard.

Political group: PPE-DE