Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start with a word of thanks and appreciation to the Greek Presidency of the Council, and also, Mr Simitis, to you personally. This time of grave crisis is one in which, rather than dividing Europe, it needs to be brought together, and it is evident that that is what is in your mind. As this Europe of ours does not belong to any one party family alone, but is our common possession, what I desire for you and for us all, gathered here, is that, in the remaining weeks of your Presidency, you will be successful in guiding this European Union in the right direction for the future! (Applause from the right) At this time, we think of the coalition troops in Iraq, some 30 000 of them from a Member State of the European Union. Human dignity being indivisible, though, we think also of the Iraqi soldiers who are being misused by a criminal regime. I hope that what was so well expressed in the Conclusions of the summit here in Brussels will indeed come to pass, and that all Iraqis will very soon be allowed to live in freedom, dignity and prosperity under a representative government that will be at peace with its neighbours and an active member of the international community. That must be our objective, and we Europeans must not opt out at this stage but, together, united and with determination, must make our own effective contribution to giving peace in the Middle East a chance. Although there are differences of opinion in our group, as there were before the war, the great majority of us take the view that there is one thing we should be saying to our American friends. It is that, whilst international institutions such as the United Nations, NATO, and, of course, this integrated European structure, the European Union, may have their faults, because they are manned by human beings, we do agree that they have a vision for the future, and, no matter what the imperfections of these structures of peace, we will not allow anyone to jeopardise these institutions, the basis of whose existence is beyond question! Richard Perle has said that both the UN and NATO had lost their contemporary relevance and were meaningless in the twenty-first century. I would like to respond to that by saying that, if we ourselves put a question mark against the North Atlantic Alliance, what are we actually saying to the peoples of central Europe, to the Poles, and to the Slovenes, who have just held their referendum? That is where they are seeking security in the face of threats! That is why we have to give some thought to how to improve these institutions, but we must not question their existence. (Applause from the right) We do, of course, need proper trans-Atlantic relations and a trans-Atlantic partnership. Nobody is in any doubt about my position on the Iraq issue, and that is why I tell our American friends that the European Union is also in the American interest. Americans should not see relations with Europe solely in terms of relations between the USA and France, the USA and Great Britain, the USA and Germany, the USA and Greece, the USA and all the others. We will soon be meeting them again in the forum of the World Trade Organisation, where the European Union must – and will – present a united front. Hence my plea to our American friends that they take the European Union seriously. It is our way of strengthening our influence in the world; it is our way of living at peace with one another and maintaining good, well-ordered, relations with the United States of America on the basis of partnership! (Applause from the right) The President of the Commission has praised the Belgian initiative on defence policy. I spent ten years as chairman of this Parliament's security and disarmament sub-committee, so I know what I am talking about when I say that I very much support what they are trying to do, but am not sure that having a meeting of the few here in Belgium is the right way to go about it. We were highly critical when the British Prime Minister sent out invitations to dinner at No 10 Downing Street, with some being invited and others not. If that sort of thing catches on even in the Benelux states, then my great fear is that we will end up with new communities forming in the south, in the east, in the west, communities of Social Democrats, communities of , some of them overlapping. We must make use of the Community institutions and work together in them! (Applause from the right) Let me make a few comments on the Lisbon process; while I am grateful to the President of the European Council for mentioning this topic, we have for some time regarded as excessively bombastic the statement that we are to become a best economic area in the world. It always reminds us a bit of Nikita Khrushchev, who, in the 1960s, always wanted to overtake the USA, and we know what the result was! The goal is the right one, but what now matters is that the instruments be brought into play, and this is where a number of Member States are not doing what has to be done. I would have liked more to have been said about monetary stability. A lot is being said about the Stability Pact's flexibility. Let us just consider what the Euro is worth to us today. Let us imagine what things would be like if it did not exist – how then would our currencies be valued in relation to each other today? It is for that reason that we must defend the common European currency, and we need it to be a stable one. What is of pre-eminent importance is globalisation, which is often decried – sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly. Big businesses are able to seek out for themselves a business location where taxes are at their lowest, which small and medium-sized enterprises cannot do. It follows that structural reforms must be of such a nature as to enable small and medium-sized firms to invest, taxes to be cut and jobs to be thereby created. This is where governments must take some action at last! Please allow me to make two comments by way of conclusion. I hope that a statute for European political parties will come about before the end of the Greek Presidency, and, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I urge you to ensure that we achieve a result on the issue of the financial package with the prospect of enlargement. We will not accept any curtailment of Parliament's rights as regards the Budget, but nor do we want to delay enlargement; we want to keep to the timetable. We wish you success in your efforts to do this. To the President of the Commission, too, I make the plea that we should now do everything possible to maintain Parliament's rights and prevent discrimination against the candidate countries. For these things we will continue to campaign, and we ask that you put them into practice. Then, success will be ours under the Greek Presidency of the Council, a success that I wish, not only for you, but also for us all, and from the bottom of my heart. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE