Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for your work and congratulate your team. Ladies and gentlemen, today we have a date with history, with our future as Europeans. We are at the gates of the greatest enlargement we have seen. My group, the Group of the European Socialist Party, will vote to fling these gates wide-open so that we can take a great qualitative leap forward, allowing the majority of the population and the surface area of our continent to be reunited, thereby increasing its wealth and diversity. We have put the use of pre-emptive war as a pretext, and wars of conquest, which desolated our continent for centuries, behind us. We have established peace as our rule and a shared destiny as the solution and this is enshrined in a Union based on common values, respect for human rights, good governance and the rule of law. It is a secular union in which there is separation between the secular and the religious and respect for religious beliefs. The President-in-Office of the Council has said that we are going to hold this event next week in the Agora in Athens, which reflects democracy and the market – which is where we began. I would also like to remind him of our debt to the Middle East – and not just in a religious sense – the oldest legal text we know of is the Code of Hammurabi, from Mesopotamia. This date will clearly be established as a political milestone in the history of our Union, overcoming Munich and Yalta. Europe is being reborn as a geographical and political unit, fulfilling the words of Willy Brandt on German reunification ‘Jetzt wächt zusammen was zusammen gehört’ [Now what belongs together, is growing together]. I would also like to point out, as a personal memory, that 12 years ago, as President of the European Parliament, I announced the award of the Sakharov Prize to Alexander Dubcek, who was a political prisoner, and a year later he received that prize in this Parliament. And Walesa, who was a dissident, also visited Parliament a year later as President of Poland. This is the leap we have taken and now we have to complete it by ensuring that we genuinely have a shared destiny and solidarity. This is not the end of our journey but rather a beginning, and ours is an unprecedented superproject, an enormous challenge for all of us in which we have to overcome doubts, frustrations and fears, particularly at a time when there is a tremendous irony of history and great concern amongst our fellow citizens about the unilateralism of the Bush administration, which has caused great upheaval in the European Union, even though the United States has been one of the decisive elements in the creation of this Union. There are some in this House who believe we should recover our unity and repair what has been broken before enlarging. Others fear that there will be more division. I would like to say on behalf of my group that we believe, following Copenhagen, that pacta sunt servanda, that we must respect our commitments. And also say to the new partners that they are not responsible for our internal quarrels, but that what we have to do is to build together with a view to the future, in a spirit of solidarity, overcoming national egotism through Community solidarity. If the President-in-Office of the Council will allow me to make a proposal, next Wednesday, 16 April, in the Agora, there will be a great ceremony with our Heads of State and Government, the fifteen current ones and the ten who are joining us; why do you not round off this ceremony with a joint European statement based on our values? That is, propose a common will on the part of all of us to deal with the future of the Iraqi people, firstly through humanitarian aid and then by ensuring their future within the framework of the United Nations. I believe that would be the icing on the cake to conclude that important ceremony. I would suggest that you say this to President Simitis, I believe it would be very important. And this would allow us to make progress with the European project, to move towards a united Europe that really works. Please allow me, Mr President, to refer to overcoming the budgetary conflict. I would like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and all the rapporteurs who have been able to find a new approach to a problem which could have led to a very difficult situation within this House, and which could, furthermore, have dramatically altered and reduced the powers of the European Parliament. I believe that if we vote yes this week – and my group is in favour – we will achieve a stronger and more cooperative Europe, reinforcing our foundations by means of a Constitution, which will allow the tree of the old Europe to blossom once again and we will be able to guarantee peace for us and for our children and also consolidate peace throughout the world. (Applause)

Political group: PSE