Mr President, thank you very much for your words and I would like to congratulate you on having called this plenary session just a few days after the closing session of the Convention and just a few days before the European Council in Thessaloniki. This Parliament will be the first to debate the draft Constitution. And it is with emotion that I would like to point out that, in 1997, it was this Parliament, in a report for which Mr Dimitris Tsasos and myself were rapporteurs, that approved the replacement of the intergovernmental method with what we then called the Community method for the reform of the Treaties. That Community method, enshrined in the Resolution of 19 November 1997, is the Convention. The European Parliament’s option has therefore been a successful one, because I would like to say quite seriously that, in the 16 months of the Convention’s work, we have done more than in ten years of Intergovernmental Conferences. Firstly, Mr President, we have a Constitution. I remember how this Parliament was also a pioneer, through the report by Mr Olivier Duhamel, in calling for the constitutionalisation of the Union. This constitutionalisation is going to increase efficiency and is going to produce a Union of results. Many of our requests are in the text: the pillars disappear, the Union has a legal personality, we are going to reinforce the Community method, we have guaranteed the Commission's monopoly on initiative, a legislative procedure in which the Council and Parliament are on an equal footing will become the normal procedure. We have also achieved a move from unanimity to qualified majority in many areas, and this Parliament will be involved in 70 of them, when at the moment it is involved in 34. We also have a great simplification of methods, Mr President: we have ended up with five decision-making procedures and we have managed to use a language which was far-removed from the Community jargon. But we have also democratised the Union, starting with the first article of the Constitution, which speaks of the Union's double legitimacy, something which this Parliament has always advocated as a Union of states and citizens. When I entered this Parliament in 1992 it was a consultative assembly. After the Constitution this Parliament will be a Parliament worthy of its name. And this democratising effect also impacts on national parliaments. I would like to pay tribute to Mr Napolitano and his report, for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, because we have created a means for involving national Parliaments in the Community procedure by means of the early warning system. I would also like to say to all of those people who have always noted a degree of rivalry between the national Parliaments and the European Parliament that our main allies in this Convention have been the national Parliaments. And I would like to pay tribute to them for that. I also believe, Mr President, that we have done something enormously important, something we have fought for in this Parliament, which is to integrate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Constitution. We called for this before Nice and we did not achieve it, but the Charter of Fundamental Rights is now going to become the document which will give Europeans their identity. And not only have we reinforced the representative institutions, but also the participatory ones. The Constitution has recognised the role of non-governmental organisations and associations, and we have incorporated popular initiative as an instrument for semi-direct democracy. Mr President, when Mr Giscard d'Estaing was asked last week who had won, he said that in terms of this Constitution the European Parliament had won. I believe the citizen has won. I believe this is a triumph for the European citizens, who are going to have a Union capable of producing better results, a more transparent Union and, above all, a more efficient Union. And allow me to say that, as Chairman, I have been very honoured to carry out this task. Very honoured because the 32 members of the delegation – we have not distinguished between members and substitutes – have done exceptional work in defending the positions of Parliament and in providing technical and political support at all times for myself, for Klaus Hänsch and for Andrew Duff. Please let me say one more thing, Mr President: go to Thessaloniki. I believe that this Parliament's political message is a very clear one. You have said that this Constitution represents radical progress. I believe this is the most important advance the European Union has made since the Treaties of Rome, and I am therefore convinced that the Intergovernmental Conference is not going to improve it. I believe that we should defend this text, which has been presented without options, as the European Parliament wanted, to the end. At the end of this process, moreover, Mr President, I believe we must put it to a referendum. Certain governments, such as the Spanish Government, have asked that such a referendum take place on the same day as the European Parliament elections; and I believe this would represent the culmination of this democratising element contained in the European Constitution. Thank you very much to everybody for your help. Without your help, without everybody's help, this would have been impossible. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE