Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, let me start by thanking the Italian Presidency of the Council for having so far kept its promise to stick as closely as possible to the Convention’s draft. On behalf of my group, I would encourage them to keep to this rule. It must be apparent to us that what has happened with the Stability Pact has lost us credibility in some areas, with an effect on the relations between smaller and larger states in these negotiations and, as regards two states, it has certainly not led them to adopt a more conciliatory negotiating position. Perhaps I may start by saying something that I think is important, namely that these negotiations must not interfere with the stability and strength of the European Central Bank, and that the attempts in various quarters to do so must be nipped in the bud. It must be clear to us that there has been a great deal of progress in many areas, to which Mr Antonione has referred. I am particularly pleased that Naples has seen such progress in the area of security policy with regard to structural cooperation and the mutual assistance clause, including the protocol, to such an extent that it can indeed be described as a breakthrough. The Convention, I believe, always took the view that the door should be left open so that other countries could join, and that this should not be seen in opposition to trans-Atlantic relationships. I just hope that the Foreign Minister can gain acceptance in the same way, and I think it extraordinarily important from the point of view of the Commission and of Parliament that the Foreign Minister should be a full member of the Commission, with all that follows from that, although there is no doubting that he will have particular duties of loyalty to the Council, and the clarification that the Italian Presidency of the Council has provided in this regard is also important. I also think it crucially important that he should also chair the Council of Foreign Ministers – indeed, it makes no sense for him not to, and only then will the whole edifice make sense. I am not sure that I can take seriously the idea that it is the foreign ministers, of all people, who find the title of ‘Foreign Minister’ problematic. I do not quite understand what is so problematic about it. If I am reading Naples the right way, it also seems to be important that the President of the European Council should not have the power to intervene in the General Council and in what it does. I hope that the negotiations will leave this unchanged. This is part of the institutional balance – President of the Commission, General Council and European Council – and we have accepted the idea of a President of the European Council only if he has no influence over the rest of what the Council does and over the lawmaking process. I believe that this will prove resistant to the attempts about which we have heard. I have to say that there are two points that leave me profoundly saddened. Trying to solve the problem of voting procedures in the Council by setting a fixed date, in 2009, when it has to go back to taking decisions unanimously, is an escape route. It is one that has never worked yet, and if we want the Council to function, it must be enabled to take decisions by dual majority, as proposed by the Convention, and I hope that this will not be too readily abandoned in the course of negotiations over the next ten days. We took a critical line on Nice because it did not provide the capacity to act that enlargement demanded. This of all points must not be the cause of the negotiations’ failure. The second point I would like to address is this: if Parliament is to lose out as a result of changes to budgetary law, then I regard that as the breaking point. If – as the Ecofin ministers tell us – the intention is that Parliament’s budgetary rights should revert to being what they were before the Inter-Institutional Agreement, or even pre-1978, then that is not acceptable. What we have is a finely-tuned balance, including the fact that the Council alone has the last word when it comes to own resources. In this context, this is a balance, one that is destroyed if any point of it is changed. Although I have gone over time, I would like to say that approval of the Budget is Parliament’s prerogative. No parliament can agree to a constitution that violates this prerogative. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE