Mr President, the Group of the and the is pleased with your speech because, in it, you remind Parliament of its political role and do not dwell on technical details, although I am certain that it will take a lot of time to regulate these. We do not want to be a well-oiled voting machine. We want to make history and we want to highlight Europe’s own role in the world at a time when peace and stability in the world are under threat. It is not sufficient to organise development cooperation. We must be able to promote peace and stability in a European manner, on the basis of our values. We want to maximise our role as a parliament. We want to monitor. We want to enact laws on behalf of public opinion but also in contact with that opinion and with the media which should bring us closer to the public. A great deal of progress has been made. I arrived in this Parliament having had experience of many parliaments before, sometimes parliaments which were usually better attended than this one, a phenomenon which I regret. Outside these walls, people often think that we are not a real parliament, but I have found a true parliament here. However, we must ensure that we have a statute, we agree with you on that, otherwise we as MEPs lack credibility. In addition, we must also further shape the assistants’ statute into which Mr Onesta has put such great effort. Moreover, we must be given more competences. Codecision must be extended rather than eroded, and this must be done in a fully transparent manner. Needless to say, the activities must be reformed. The will to reform is there. A great deal can be done within the current Rules of Procedure, provided that the will is there, the will to debate rather than read out little monologues prepared on paper, the will to be present and to enter into dialogue with each other. The debate must not stifle pluralism, quite the contrary. We are here to talk, for we are a parliament in which it must be possible to express the whole range of opinions. This is why we do believe that the Corbett report is a solid basis for a discussion, but if it means that the rights of small groups are cut back, or the rights of individual MEPs compromised, then we touch the soul and diversity of this Parliament, and that is not acceptable. We also want to express our slight concern to the Council. Parliament cannot accept shortened procedures if the Council fails to debate with us in our committees. We can hold more debates there, but not in the absence of the Council, not without the attendant transparency and not without the debate that we want. We must condemn creeping reforms without clear objectives. We want more democracy, respect for subsidiarity, a rapprochement between citizens and the European Parliament and a dialogue with the regional and national parliaments. If not, the already strong distrust among our citizens will only grow. We must clearly establish the legal basis for our actions once and for all, and not let our legal basis be taken away. We welcome your instruction to prepare the future in consultation with public opinion and with the parliaments in the candidate countries. You are moving closer to them. We encounter them in the joint meetings. Why do we not open up our committees to enter into debate with them, as we also want to do with our own public opinion, and why do we not open up our sumptuous chambers more than has hitherto been the case? The Convention will be the proof of the pudding. We are putting our trust in this. If we want to prepare Europe for tackling the enormous tasks of enlargement, the Convention cannot afford to fail. It should not endeavour to write a cookery book, which is subsequently used in some new night-time session to concoct a grim menu. We want a Convention that knows the direction in which Parliament wants to guide it. As the European Parliament, we must face up to our task in that Convention and involve the others in that debate, both regional and national parliaments, as well as public opinion, and ensure that Europe takes the qualitative step forward that is required for enlargement.

Political group: Verts-ALE