Madam President, Mr President of the Republic, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, my group takes a very dim view of the Fifteen following the rather unappetising spectacle they put on for the European people, who were probably amazed to see on that occasion, and at first hand, the real common vision, sense of solidarity and mutual trust that exists between the major European leaders. Although, despite everything, I welcomed the conclusion of an agreement with a certain amount of relief, I did so because, as Mr Cox said, a failure at Nice would have been used by the shameless opponents of enlargement if not to sound the death knell, at least to call for the indefinite postponement of this great project. We would then have sent the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe a signal of incalculable political consequences. There is nothing less secure today than a successful enlargement but at least the way remains open for action in favour of such a prospect. Besides, what a cruel illustration of the crisis which is not only institutional, but which, at a deeper level, is an identity crisis for European integration in the face of the titanic issues confronting the European Union! The problem facing the Fifteen lies, I believe, less in their difficulty in providing sound responses, than in their refusal to address the right questions. We feel that the right questions are those on the lips of the impressive human tide which converged on Nice from all over Europe on the eve of the Summit. This was not a handful of troublemakers from the margins of society but workers who were uniting with the most representative waves of public opinion in their respective countries. Some of them were supporters of the beginnings of European integration and probably voters – men and women – from most of the political families represented here. Beyond their differences, all their questions in one way or another concerned a fundamental issue: the purpose of this integration whose institutions we wish to reform. For whom is it designed? What is its point? Where is this Europe of the Fifteen headed today, and even more to the point, the great Europe with twenty-seven or thirty, tomorrow? Is it condemned to collapse under the current system of liberal globalisation? Is its purpose to speed up the process of deregulation? To make competition the be all and end all of their economic policy? To try to destroy everything that is the essence of our societies through the rationale of commerce, to the point that people need to rally together to achieve a few exceptions and to concentrate all the power at the top, far from everyday life and far from the people? Is there any more relevant question than that of whether other choices are conceivable? Choices in which most members of the public can recognise themselves? Major joint projects in Europe itself and on the international stage, in which they would find reasons and pleasure in committing themselves together, projects designed to achieve a shared dominance of the markets, a common, proactive political approach in the economic, social and cultural fields, real access for social actors to the necessary information and to the decision-making and control procedures, from their company to the institutions. What preliminary answers to these legitimate questions did the Nice European Council give the public? The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was supposed to be a figurehead for this summit was dispatched without ceremony. Neither is the European defence force, along with the military language that has accompanied its miraculously rapid creation, able to give the European adventure the boost that it needs. Symptomatically, it is in the few areas in which the demand for concrete measures had been clearly demonstrated in our societies that a few positive agreements have finally been reached between the Fifteen. I am thinking of food safety, maritime safety, the declaration on the specific nature of sport with regard to competition rules or even the European Company Statute. With regard to the Social Agenda, although we would be hard pushed to find the specific objectives that we hoped for, at least it offers elements that will provide support for action in the next five years. That may be true, but this does not make a project and unless there is a common project, institutional reform could only lead to a form of soulless and unceremonious inter-State horse-trading. To conclude, I share my group’s view that the Nice European Council will ultimately have been the turning point for a kind of institutional and political construction that has shown its limitations and has reached the end of its useful life. The absence of a coherent, comprehensible, and inspiring common project, the refusal to hold a public and transparent debate on the various options due to an apparent consensus, which is inevitably liberal and hostile to any sign of independence from the established order, the exacerbation of violent relations between partners from the same Community and the excessive concentration of power in the leadership of States over the heads of their citizens – these are all issues that are not recent but which are now undeniable in the open debate on Europe’s future. Thank you.

Political group: GUE-NGL