Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today is an important day for European democracy, because we always talk about the institutions of the European structure, but we never talk about the protagonists and we need protagonists on the European stage. They are the political parties. Following the awful things that I heard in this House yesterday, allow me, Mr President, to say something that is based on my own experience, which is shared by you, in your country, and by Mr Poettering, which is that those who are against political parties are against democracy. Parties will have their flaws, but there is no pluralist democracy in the world without political parties that represent the will of the people. We therefore need to be very careful with demagoguery on this very important issue. I have to say that I feel particularly proud, because almost ten years ago to the day, with the help and support of President Martens, President De Clercq, who is still our colleague, and President Spitaels, as President of Parliament, I made the first proposal that was given form in Article 138 of the Treaty, now Article 191, in which, in agreement with President Lubbers, we succeeded in having the political parties incorporated into the Treaties. We must not now simply content ourselves with proclaiming principles. What we have to do is develop and give personality to the European political parties, and ensure that they do not continue to be some sort of annex to our groups. This is the reason why, although we debate and disagree on many other things, we are in agreement on these matters, which are essential for democracy. With regard to the debate and the report drawn up by Mrs Schleicher, whose work I welcome, I would say to my fellow Member, Mr Poettering, that we disagree on many things, but I would ask him not to get angry with Mr Kuhne, who raised a request made to us by the Court of Auditors in the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I would ask him, before twelve o’clock, to reconsider his anger and support these amendments, which I think could be positive for everyone. Another aspect that we think is essential, and here I would also ask for the support of your group, is that we should take a step forward on an essential issue for European democracy, which is the funding of the parties, in terms of who can contribute funds. This is an open debate. In the United States we have just seen the McCain initiative on soft money and hard money. In many European countries we have had bitter experiences in this area. We have not taken drastic action. We have worked instead on the basis of experiences that have occurred in the various European countries... what we say is that legal entities, basically commercial companies, should not be able to give money to parties. We are in favour of a ban in this area, because we believe that this is good for democracy and for transparency, because what we are talking about here are not acts of philanthropy. Something is always asked for in return – you only have to look at what President Bush is proposing for the energy sector. To conclude, Mr President, allow me to point out the happy coincidence that today the majority of this House and the groups that have a European dimension, and we should not forget that we have a European dimension, have members from all the countries in the Union. We want order, regulation, transparency and responsibility to the citizens and we therefore ask that our positions be respected in this debate and above all that there should be a shared democratic will at this decisive moment for European integration.

Political group: PSE