Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, we warmly applauded the President of the Commission just now. I am pleased for him personally, but I am also pleased about the case he has been making. We cannot always applaud the President of the Commission so enthusiastically. Mr Prodi, the Group of the and the wishes to sincerely thank you and the whole Commission for the work you have done. I would also like to add that our group very much supports the Commission as regards the future of the European Union and its institutions. That does not mean that there will not be differences of opinion between us on points of detail, and today's debate is one which forms part of a process in which we need to exchange views, and a process in which others are also involved, such as governments, with whom we ultimately need to achieve a result as well. I believe that the most important thing in the debate over the coming months will be for the Commission and Parliament to ensure in no uncertain terms that the outcome of the Convention is underpinned by the Community method. The Community method means the institutions of the European Union acting together and it particularly means that we must very firmly reject the intergovernmental method. I want to make this point crystal clear, and in the full public gaze: if at the end of the Convention the intergovernmental method wins the day, we could not support that. In that respect, we are totally at one with the Commission. (Applause) We want a democratic Europe, and as far as we are concerned a democratic Europe means a representative democracy at EU level. That means the European Parliament being closely involved in all legislative issues, as a 100% co-legislator, as Mr Romano Prodi said. However, a democratic Europe based on representative democracy also means that we recognise the principle of subsidiarity. If we do not want a chamber at EU level consisting of national Members of Parliament, then we also need to strive to define what tasks are European tasks. All other tasks are tasks for the Member States of the European Union and it is the job of the Member States of the European Union to define what are national matters, what are regional matters and what are matters for local authorities. The principle of representative democracy must apply at all four of these levels – local authorities, regions, nations and the European Union. That implies that we need to link the Community method at EU level with the principle of subsidiarity. We need Europe to be effective – let me emphasise that point – and to be clearer and easier to understand. As far as we are concerned, a key issue and one linked with the Community method is that the Europe we are building should be a legal Community. Because if it is not a legal Community it will be an intergovernmental Europe, and that would be opening the way to political opportunism, and history has shown that to be a very bad thing for Europe. It is not possible for me to talk very much about the many points of detail in the four minutes I have at my disposal, but I urge us all to consistently be guided by the issue of method when we have individual decisions to make. My request to the members of the Convention, and let me repeat it here, is this: make sure that the Convention achieves results. If we do not manage to achieve any results in the Convention, and transfer this task to the Intergovernmental Conference, the outcome of that conference will owe less to the Community method than what we can achieve in the Convention. That is why I am calling for our work in the Convention to be completed and for a willingness to compromise to be demonstrated in that forum, so that by the end of June 2003 we will be able to present a reasonable proposal for a European constitution. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE