Mr President, I am speaking not just to the President-in-Office of the Council but also to all the governments of the Member States when I say that if agreement is not reached in Nice on these difficult issues those issues will not go away. They will not become easier to solve after Nice, they will become more difficult. So a final major effort is necessary over the next two weeks. This is no more so than on the issue of qualified majority voting. Every government is saying we need more qualified majority voting, but they all have their list of exceptions. The problem is if you put the lists of exceptions next to each other you will find there are very few areas of substance where it is agreed to switch to qualified majority voting. Everyone will have to sacrifice some of their cherished exceptions if we are to reach a result in Nice. Of course some governments will be attacked in their Member States by opposition parties, by euro-sceptics, saying, “you are giving up the national right of veto”. But it has to be understood that if you have the right of veto then so does everyone else. So in a Union of 27 Member States for every veto you trade in, 26 other vetoes are being given up at the same time. Consequently, things that you want will no longer be vetoed by others. Everyone can gain from a system of qualified majority voting. If we are to have more qualified majority voting on legislation it must go hand in hand with codecision, not only for the new areas which will come to qualified majority voting but also for the existing areas that already come under qualified majority voting. This is essential for democracy at Union level. To adopt European legislation you must pass two tests: acceptability to the elected governments meeting in the Council, and acceptability to the directly-elected MEPs in the European Parliament. These are two safeguards for the quality and the acceptability of European legislation. It is nothing to be afraid of. The working of the codecision procedure over the last year shows that it works. In more than three quarters of the cases we do not even need the Conciliation Committee; the two readings each in Council and Parliament are enough to reach agreement. If this is working here let us make it work across the whole spectrum of legislation. Finally, there is the question of the number of seats in the European Parliament. We know that a definitive solution must be in place for the parliament to be elected in 2009, which will, after all, last until 2014. By then I am sure we will have enlarged to at least 27 Member States. But a first transition will also have to be made for the parliament to be elected in 2004 because at least some new Member States will come in before or during the Parliament to be elected in 2004 which will last until 2009. We must make some room now for enlargement in that Parliament. If a lot of states come in maybe we will exceed temporarily the limit of 700, but a first adjustment must be made now. It is easier to make two small steps in this regard rather than one big step so I urge the President to persevere and I urge all governments to make the necessary compromises in Nice.

Political group: PSE