Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Hänsch. I would also like to say right away that our group can support the draft Constitution. Not all the dreams have come to fruition. If we consider the challenges facing us, especially the enlargement to twenty-five Member States, Europe's role in matters of war and peace, and worldwide developments, I would have liked to see something a little more courageous. I would have liked to see majority voting in foreign policy – but this is something which I hope we can still discuss during the negotiations on Part III. With twenty-five Member States, how can we make any progress on certain aspects of tax policy if we do not have majority voting, and if we fail to make further improvements here in Part III? In other words, measured against the challenges, we cannot be satisfied, but what has been achieved is better than what we had before, and that is the essential point. It is better than what we have at present, for Europe has never been developed in a single step. Even with twenty-five countries, we still cannot enshrine ‘finality’, because no agreement can be reached on this. Walter Hallstein was right, as always, when he said that European union is a creatio continua – an ongoing process of creation. The progress which can be made at a specific moment in history is written down and enshrined in treaty form – and now in the form of a constitution – and is the basis for further development and progress within the European Union. This is the perspective from which we should view this outcome. I agree with Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Hänsch when they say that this is a truly magnificent achievement. If we look at our own nation-states and see how often it takes years of dispute to amend a tax law or perhaps revise a provision of the constitution, and how lengthy and difficult a process achieving a decision or an agreement can be, I think it is a miracle that so many nations, represented by their governments and parliamentarians, have been able to reach agreement on a common constitution. That is almost unprecedented in constitutional history. In all our countries, our constitutions were created as a result of new beginnings, crises, disasters and war, when there was social and political consensus in the country, but not in normal times. The fact that this has nonetheless been achieved has a great deal to do with the fact that the majority of this Convention was composed of parliamentarians, who – unlike the diplomats at the Intergovernmental Conferences – think in terms of solutions, not competences. (Applause) For this reason, on behalf of my group, I would like to send one message to Thessaloniki. What the parliamentarians have drafted must not be reopened by the diplomats, for nothing legitimates their doing so. (Applause) This is why we must defend what has been achieved, especially through the parliamentarians’ work. Even if every one of us has an issue where he or she is not entirely satisfied, we must put it to one side and refrain, for the next six months, from making fresh demands. Instead, we must defend what has been achieved and postpone other desirable things for the time being. After that, we will have a chance of achieving them. I am also quite optimistic that every one of the governments that are now moaning wants a different thing changed. However, one would cancel out the other, and that is probably the safest guarantee that at the end of the day, the text will go through more or less as it stands. I believe that a Europe of citizens has also been created. What has been founded is a Europe of states and of citizens, safeguarded by fundamental rights. At the elections, the citizens will vote on the head of the executive because linkage has been established between the elections to the European Parliament and the election of the executive. We see that this has occurred on the basis of a value-oriented constitution. My group battled hard to include a reference to Christianity; we were not successful, but what has been achieved is a value-based constitution, with religious life being enshrined as an element of significance for the future, and values are, in any case, set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. We have more scope for action. We have clarity between the institutions. We have found an equilibrium – despite the President of the European Council – which seems to me to be reasonably well-balanced. For this reason, we should vote for the draft Constitution and then have further discussions next week during the negotiations on Part III, if at all possible. In particular, we should ensure that we are more effective on the key foreign policy issue, but we should also remember that through closer cooperation, we have made much more progress than has been discussed in public so far, including the option of an obligation to provide support. I think that for this reason, it is good work and this House should endorse it. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE