Mr President, President-in-Office, at the beginning of the last century, a disgruntled writer from Dublin went to live in Italy. He wrote a famous novel in Trieste, a city that some years after his death came to mark the southern end of a line which divided our continent for half a century. This year, under this Irish presidency, that line will finally be erased. History, as Stephen Daedelus reminded us in James Joyce's Ulysses, is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake. The Irish presidency is right to focus on enlargement. It is an historic moment: the final act of the revolutions of 1989. It is appropriate that a country which speaks for the transformative power of the European Union should oversee that process. But we should not be tempted to believe that we can separate enlargement from agreement on the instrument designed to make that step possible. Integrating the new Member States into the Lisbon process and Schengen cannot hide the fact that without the additional framework of a new constitutional settlement we are simply changing the oil in a Union which needs a new engine. Liberals in this House welcome the Taoiseach's strong commitment to advancing the work of the IGC. December's tempers have cooled. Europe's destiny is in an altogether safer pair of hands. This time, Europe's leaders must choose to succeed. My Group also welcomes the presidency's intention to sustain the momentum of enlargement by concluding accession talks with Romania and Bulgaria and by responding to the request from Croatia. We, too, see this as the moment to achieve an historic settlement with Cyprus. The presidency also rightly focuses, too, on the Lisbon Agenda in what can only be called its hour of need. Most of the structural problems identified at Lisbon remain obstacles to wealth creation. The political will needed to undertake reform and give the eurozone credibility has not yet clearly been summoned. The Celtic tiger has long stood for the benefits of competitiveness and economic discipline. Now it is time for you to roar in the Council. We welcome the commitments on the Framework Directive on Services, published by the Commission yesterday, and on the Financial Services Action Plan. We welcome the commitment to work with the European Parliament to secure the adoption of the Trans-European Networks proposals. But your modesty about what you can achieve must not obscure the need to resurrect the Growth and Stability Pact in some form under this presidency. The presidency's assessment of our agenda abroad is also sound. We welcome the focus on African issues, on the holocaust of AIDS and poverty and hunger. We accept the need to work constructively with Russia, although we expect hard words on Chechnya and on Russia's vanishing political pluralism. We welcome the attempts to rebuild bridges in our transatlantic friendships. But here the Council's loyalty to European values means that Guantanamo Bay must be on the agenda of the EU-US Summit. The EU must act together to demand conscionable treatment for all detainees in Camp Delta, including the Europeans who have now been held for two years without charge. I welcome, Mr President-in-Office, your commitment to review justice and home affairs in the Union. I hope you will not overlook the worrying Amnesty International report on human rights within some of our own member countries. My Group welcomes the presidency's political commitment to take the Statute for Members forward. That commitment must now be carried through into reform by both Parliament and the Council so that the statute can enter into force after the elections. Mr President-in-Office, your work programme is a worthy one. If my Group could offer you a slogan for it, it would be 'restoring belief'. Deliver a deal on the Constitution and see in enlargement and you will have done Europe, and Ireland, proud. Carry that spirit through to the European elections in June, to a pan-European campaign with a continental consciousness rather than 25 national campaigns, and history will give you rich reward. (Applause)

Political group: ELDR