Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when, on 10 July, a standing ovation greeted the Convention’s adoption, in this room, of the draft constitution, the elation on the one side and the disappointment of the other could not obscure the fact that we had found the highest common denominator for the future of Europe. Now, here it comes again – the Intergovernmental Conference. The bazaar is open to those who trade in national interests. The governments have again seized control of the European constitutional process and act out the wielding of their power in splendour and pomp on a feudal stage, on which they make great affirmations of belief in Europe, whilst behind its scenery, people are already shouting the odds about their national interests. Although the Convention must be silent, now is the time for this House to speak up as the trustee and advocate of this, the greatest possible European consensus. (Applause) We cannot stand by and watch as this replay of Amsterdam and Nice, perhaps with the outcome of Nice II or Nice III, takes us to the slippery slope and back to the lowest common European denominator. Far from being a task force or a preparatory group composed of motley experts, this Convention was a unique forum of all the national parliaments, including those of the accession countries, including those of Spain and Poland, of all the national governments, including those of Finland and Austria, and it was also a forum for the European institutions, Parliament and the Commission. After eighteen months of negotiation, a great and historic consensus was achieved. Under pressure from the governments, the Convention cut much of it out. The parliaments were represented; it is they, rather than the governments, who are the masters of the treaties, and they wanted to go a good deal further alongside us. Under pressure from the governments, we made great compromises. Now is the time for us, in this House, to remind the governments that negotiations involve such a thing as good faith, and that, at the end of eighteen months of negotiations, you cannot behave as if you were not there and put on a shadow-boxing show that pits large against small and East against West, bearing no relation whatever to reality. I was very much surprised that the President of the Commission had nothing to say about this historic course of events, but large versus small is not Europe’s game. Simply rotating the presidencies of both the Commission and the Council is enough to represent the equality of all countries. It is, though, the attack by the national executives on European parliamentary life that must be combated, and it will be the public who will pay the price. The idea of a Legislative Council was central to the separation of the powers in the European democracy, central to Parliamentary control of the Council, central to the public character of European lawmaking and to the idea of its proximity to the citizen – yet it was disposed of at the first sitting! Disposed of consensually at the first sitting, without asking either the parliaments or the European institutions, all of which had asked for it! This is an attack on the hard-won majority decisions that were to make Europe capable of acting! The European Public Prosecutor, the public nature of lawmaking – this is not shadowboxing; this is an all-out assault on the very idea of Europe’s new architecture as a European democracy and as a great step forward towards its political unification. It is for us in the European Parliament, being also delegates to the Convention, to publicly denounce this national tug-of-war, to do so with all possible determination, and as loudly as we can, so that it is not just nationalism that makes its voice heard in Europe, but also the ideal of political unity! (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE