Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to welcome you, Mr Gama, and to congratulate you on your speech and on your presentation of the Portuguese Presidency’s programme. I would also like to say that we believe cooperation with the Council is not just about the kind of cooperation dictated by institutional criteria, it is also about the kind of cooperation we believe the content of the programme presented by the Portuguese Presidency deserves. The same applies to cooperation with the Commission, but in this particular case I have in mind the Council. We believe that this programme provides a balanced and ambitious vision of how the European Union should tackle the challenges it faces: emphasising external relations, by means of a strategic policy of relations with various parts of the world, and with particular stress on understanding developments in Latin America and within Mercosur. But priority also needs to be given to enlargement and to the need to strengthen the common European security and defence policy. However, alongside this important vision in the Presidency programme, European problems, that is to say the problems of the countries that constitute the European Union, are also a priority and a concern in this programme. In this context, the area of freedom, security and justice is a priority, as is concern regarding food safety, consumer rights and environmental issues, as part of a vision of development that is sustainable internally and which does not need help from outside. Of all these different points there is one, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that deserves our special praise, and that is the priority the Portuguese Presidency is giving to social affairs and employment issues. The Portuguese Presidency has not simply been content to incorporate the legacy of other presidencies into its programme: instead, it wishes to leave its own legacy, and this legacy is one that we Socialists and, I am sure, most Members of this House, will consider an important one. It involves not just making the European Union a dynamic and competitive area of the world but, first and foremost, remaining faithful to its civilising values and defending the European social model. At the beginning of this new millennium, the greatest tribute that we can pay to the founders of Europe and to the real project of EU solidarity is perhaps this desire for competitiveness based on innovation and knowledge. I am delighted to note, from the way this document was presented last week by the President-in-Office of the Council and from the way it has been drawn up, that this point is likely to be not just a priority for one presidency, but an EU objective for the foreseeable future. We would accordingly like to offer our congratulations on this choice of priority and to state our willingness to cooperate in developing it and in ensuring that we move from words to deeds in this regard. My second point concerns the Intergovernmental Conference, which Mr Poettering has already mentioned. The European Parliament was deeply disappointed with the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council – disappointed both by the Council’s attitude towards the European Parliament and by the agenda it set. When it comes to revising the Treaty, the European Parliament does not want to be relegated to the role of a mere observer of the Intergovernmental Conference’s work. We have opinions, we have work to do, we have experience, and we want to use this experience to help Europe and the European Union develop and become stronger. And the agenda and the content have not been set at the whim of the European Parliament or out of stubbornness. There cannot be an IGC every year, and we now have an opportunity to give some impetus to various topics on the agenda. I do not mean that this applies to every topic – we cannot achieve wholesale reform, but we can make progress in some areas. Issues such as defence policy, citizens’ rights – which may have to be dealt with in parallel, in the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights – and the question of the European Union Human Rights Commissioner, are all issues which, in our opinion, could form part of this agenda, alongside others to be examined in greater detail. That is why I am delighted to see that the presidency has declared that it is in favour of a substantial agenda. Whether we call it a substantial, comprehensive or weighty agenda, I am delighted to see that the Portuguese Presidency is willing – seriously and without “wilfulness”, as the President-in-Office put it – to work with the European Parliament to increase the awareness of the other governments and to include more topics in this agenda. We cannot expect the Portuguese Presidency to do all this work on its own. Each one of us, working in our own countries and alongside our colleagues in our national parliaments, has a duty to increase the awareness of the other governments, so that we can reach a consensus on this subject. The question I would like to put to you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is to ask whether, if we make progress and if this House can give its opinion in good time before the IGC is convened on 14 February, the Portuguese Presidency intends to present a proposal for the agenda of this new IGC to the Special European Council in Lisbon. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I wish you good luck. Your task is by no means an easy one and as Mr Barón Crespo said, the Portuguese Presidency’s programme is highly ambitious. However, as a Portuguese poet once wrote “when a man dreams, the world leaps forward”, and it is when we have grand ambitions that we will be able to make progress, even if it is only in small steps, towards making the European Union more solid, more united and, above all, stronger for all its citizens. (Applause)

Political group: PSE