Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to inform the House that I have written to President Prodi, as I did on 14 August to ask for solidarity with the Germans, the Austrians and the Czechs, telling him that now that the oil slick has reached Galicia we have to remember that the Galicians are European citizens. I am not asking you to take four Commissioners, as you did when you went to Germany, to wade around in the mud, but I would ask you, Mr President of the Commission, to make a clear gesture of solidarity. Furthermore, bear in mind that you have important responsibilities which affect many areas. For example, it would be good if Commissioner Fischler, who is an inland person, could see that 60% of the world industrial production of turbot is in danger. With regard to the Commission’s proposal on the Convention, I would say first of all that the Socialist Group, President Prodi, welcomes the fact that the Commission has done its duty as a driving force – although you have come to Parliament on foot − and as guardian of the Treaties. You have presented, at an appropriate moment, a proposal which my group considers to be positive and which, furthermore, must contribute to making the work of the Convention more dynamic. We believe it is a good proposal. There are many aspects on which we are in complete agreement: the removal of the unanimity rule in the Council; the proposal of a democratic budget with the removal of obligatory expenditure and, with regard to the issue of revenue, I can tell you that my group has voted and the majority of us are in favour of a Community tax; the proposal for European lists for elections, a harmonised electoral process, promising positions on comitology. There are other proposals which we welcome as working proposals. One of them is that the President of the Commission should be elected by the European Parliament, something which I believe a large majority of this House advocates. We are not convinced that the unanimous approval of the European Council is required. I would point out that the European Council already voted in Corfu and since then votes for the President of the Commission by majority. Although in your case it was by acclamation. Similarly we approved the merger of the High Representative of the Council and the Vice-President of the Commission for External Affairs, and this may give us more strength. In any event, we have to take a decisive step towards a common foreign, security and defence policy. And now I will mention those proposals with which we clearly disagree. Firstly, we cannot accept the idea that the European Council can pass a vote of no confidence in the Commission. This would ruin the balance between the institutions. (Applause) We must move on from co-decision to shared legislative power. To this end there must be a Legislative Council which is truly a second Chamber, that is, one that legislates in public and democratically, transparently and clearly. We must tackle the problem of the Council’s combination of executive and legislative power. I would suggest that in this regard we incorporate the Trumpf and Solana proposals and the contents of the Poos report, which are very sensible. A final point, Mr President of the Commission, is that Parliament asked last month for a proposal to the Convention for a legal basis for the protection of pluralism in the European media. There is nothing of this sort in your proposal and I hope that the Convention will include it. Mr President, with regard to the Penelope document, I believe we must work like Penelope but in shifts. Certainly the Commission and Parliament will have to work by night to try to redo what others are going to undo by day. And I would remind you that the time for transactions, pacts and compromises is at the end, that is, at the end of the Convention. In the meantime, we will have to work shoulder to shoulder for the common Community cause. (Applause)

Political group: PSE