Mr President. Without wishing to deny that the work carried out by Mrs Swiebel is indeed considerable, I would nonetheless like to be slightly critical of this report, as I feel it has missed its opportunity and might even serve no purpose at all. As Commissioner Vitorino pointed out, last year, Parliament clearly established a number of points based on the new fact of the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which we hope and pray for, to make them the preamble to a constitution. There are three points therefore: drawing up a procedure, which I shall come back to; establishing resources, either parliamentary resources or external resources which could help us, without replacing us, however, which would be available to the network of experts; and the call for joint action, in other words, in fact, to work with the three rapporteurs, namely those from the year underway, the previous year and the following year, so that a consensus might be established, provided that this work concerns facts and is therefore not, a priori, too controversial. Unfortunately, the idea was not followed up and I feel that this report is more a reflection of the rapporteur’s views than the extensive analysis that would have been desirable. The methodology could be summarised as follows: the whole Charter and nothing but the Charter. The whole Charter, meaning that we therefore need, first of all, an analysis carried out article by article, State by State, of which there are fifteen this year, and of which there will soon be twenty-five, providing an opportunity to check whether or not they were respecting the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and then value by value, on the solidarity and justice chapters, making it possible to provide an overall view of these great values, to find out whether they are observed within the European Union. This is an opportunity to go beyond the strict application of the Charter with regard to the legislation of the Union of States derogating from the legislation of the Union, and Parliament had an opportunity there to acquire the power to control the actions of the States, which nobody can challenge in a Parliament, with regard to public freedom. I therefore believe some humility was needed to accomplish this painstaking task. Naturally this did not prevent the emphasis being placed on a number of subjects dear to the rapporteurs, which terrorism allowed this year, following the events of September 2001. The whole Charter, therefore, and nothing but the Charter, in other words the articles as they are and not as we might like them to be; this Charter was subject to a consensus and I should point out that the report upon which we are going to vote tomorrow has absolutely no effect on the Charter, since only a new Convention, which would have to be convened, is able to change the articles of the Charter. There are other means of action, resolutions, on occasion, directives, etc. We can also call a new Convention, as I have just said. We can also protest in our own countries since each Member State is free to go beyond the minimum standard constituted by the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I would like to take this opportunity to criticise very briefly a certain attitude that I consider to be irresponsible and populist, and which has enabled some amendments tabled by the far and the to be reconsidered, thanks, I would say, to the complicity of the Group of the . I abhor this, because by acting in this way, it has accepted things that are not found in any programme of any party in any country. Mr President, in brief conclusion, I would like to express my regret. Here we have a report which could have been much anticipated by the press and feared by the Member States, which could have served as a beacon to mark our position. Sadly, I am afraid that the 2001 report, which, moreover, was adopted too late, might be buried with other useless reports; as the does not intend to join in this burial, it will vote against it. (Applause from the right)

Political group: PPE-DE