Madam President, my group too warmly supports the approach whereby the main priorities are actually set forth in this discussion, and just for a moment we can ignore the ‘business as usual’ attitude that we do tend to encounter in our everyday work here. Right at the start I wish to say that the fact that the Union lacks the tools to work in such a way that it is actually able to answer the challenges of increasing globalisation, for example, and the tools to enable it to protect its citizens from the chaotic effects of this globalisation, is becoming a major problem. I am now referring to the fact that at the Nice Summit it proved utterly impossible to take the decision that, in future, matters to do with taxation might be decided upon by means of a qualified majority. This means that we shall be leaving this area of taxation to market forces. We are to allow market forces to shape our tax system, and this will obviously be a major obstacle to our being able to build what we here call the European social model, in which we want to steer the development of society by means of taxation. Population growth was mentioned here. It is absolutely clear that we must combat growing racism, as we will not otherwise be in any way able to deal with immigrants and asylum seekers. In this we all have a great public responsibility. Madam President, very often strong words are uttered in this House on the subject of our citizens. Here today, too, it has been said many times over that the public must be included in the decision-making process, although, unfortunately, this very often gets forgotten in practice. I will take one very topical example of this. The institutions are at this very moment trying to put together a regulation on transparency, which would safeguard the right of the public to acquire information on decision making in the Union. I would like to warn my colleagues and all those present that now it appears that this regulation on transparency is turning into more of a regulation to shield the confidentiality of the work of the institutions, or, in other words, it has precisely the opposite objective. We cannot accept this sort of thing, and we also need more public debate on this issue. Neither can this matter be discussed entirely in camera, as is happening at the moment. Madam President, sustainable development was mentioned by President Prodi in his opening address, and this is a major objective as far as my group is concerned. If we do not succeed at Gothenburg in achieving a real programme of sustainable development we will have wasted an opportunity that perhaps will not return again. It is here, if anywhere, that the Commission must demonstrate leadership and set forth its views. But it would seem that there are always problems with this in practice. Today the Commission will publish its White Paper on policy on chemicals, but I have reason to suppose that the Commission’s approach to this too will be to protect the short-sighted financial interests of industry rather than guarantee that we would actually be rid of hazardous chemicals. This is something we cannot possibly accept as we are speaking about sustainable development. Environmental competitiveness is something that should be taken seriously, and the Commission would be better off listening to companies and financial players that have realised that sustainable development can also be good business. Major reform in agriculture is at present under discussion, and we want to encourage it, and we insist that the Commission take a comprehensive view and not just content itself with taking small steps forward. In this we can look forward to a real change in the paradigm. To conclude, Madam President, if you will allow, Annex IV of the Treaty of Nice is certainly the best thing about this agreement. It states the enormous obligation of Parliament, the Commission and the Council also, and the Swedish Presidency, to take seriously our re-evaluation of the process that underlies the structure of the European Union. My group fully supports your initiative regarding our obligation to include civil society in this debate over the next six months prior to the Laeken Summit, as well, obviously, as the national parliaments and indeed those of candidate countries. It saddens me when I hear that my colleague, Mr Barón Crespo, wants to point out here that we must be mainly satisfied to listen to national parliaments. No, civil society is very much a reality. We will have to take it seriously finally and we should no longer have to witness any Intergovernmental Conference in which just the national interests are safeguarded, with all this happening behind closed doors.

Political group: Verts-ALE