Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on a report, which, on reading it, gives the impression of simply confirming and accepting the Council’s draft decision. However, this report is based on long and effective work which has already produced certain results, such as the incorporation into the Finnish Presidency’s document of 7 December 1999 of the commitment to widen the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference to include a study of the future modification of the organisation, composition and competences of the Community Courts. For this reason, I would like to express my appreciation for the work carried out by Vice-President Marinho. Mr President, the reform of the Community judicial system has become an essential requirement if, in the future, we intend justice to be done within reasonable time scales, and if, in the future, the European Union wishes to have a judicial system which is equal to the political project which we have embarked upon. Today – and I must say this with pride and satisfaction – this Parliament has had a good opportunity to demonstrate the extent to which we Europeans believe that the European political project is much more than just an internal market, and that it is based much more on principles than on economic interests. Behind these principles, Mr President, lies the justice system. However, justice delayed is justice denied, and we must reflect on this notion. The working document prepared by the Court itself contains alarming information. For this reason, the draft reform, which has been drawn up by the rapporteur, Vice-President Marinho, is to be welcomed. It is true that it is a stopgap solution, but we must rely on stopgap solutions because, at the moment – as he himself has pointed out – we cannot expect a broad reform of the system from the Intergovernmental Conference. We have to offer solutions which, while provisional, help to provide a faster and more effective system of justice. I would like to make two observations during this intervention, which stem from the report itself, given this Parliament’s obligation, in accordance with the Treaty, to produce a very succinct report, which does not go into depth. These are two of Vice-President Marinho’s ideas and, I believe, they are seconded by the whole of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. The first is that greater resources should be given to judges of first instance, and that they should be given one more référendaire. The second is that the translation services of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice should be separated. At the moment, the Court of First Instance has to wait a very long time for its judgements to be translated. According to the Treaty, one of the founding principles of this Community is linguistic and cultural plurality and there is no question of our overlooking the possibility of something as important as being able to read a judgement in our own language. Since we are talking about the Intergovernmental Conference, let us consider just two points. The first concerns this Parliament. I believe that it is well worth insisting that we wish to participate more with regard to the Court of Justice, even in the appointment of judges. Above all, we wish to see an extension of the competences of the Court of Justice, hand in hand with its capacity to fulfil its obligations, in other words, its resources. We wish to see its competences extended, especially within Chapter IV of the Treaty of the European Community and with regard to Chapter VI of the Treaty on European Union and also a review of certain possible options, certain clear limitations of protection in these areas which are of extraordinary importance to our citizens. And I refer once again to the declarations which we have heard in recent days.

Political group: PPE-DE