Berlin Declaration has created a positive climate for making progress on institutional reform

4.53.29pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 28th Mar 2007

Graham Watson MEP (ALDE group leader), replying to German Chancellor and Commission President in the plenary debate said "I congratulate you on the positive climate you created for making progress on institutional reform this year."

"However a text drafted in the catacombs of the Bundeskanzleramt and signed by the Presidents of the Union's three main institutions should not have the temerity to open with the words 'We, the citizens of the European Union'".

"Nor does it help for the European Peoples Party to claim all the credit for building this Union. The drafters of the EPP Declaration rightly praise Monnet and Schuman and Kohl, but their memory is selective at best. Thatcher, Chirac and Berlusconi were all EPP Leaders too, but they seem to have overlooked their less than helpful contributions to European unity."

"The Union is not the project of one political party. It belongs to us all," concluded Watson. "We hope the Berlin Declaration will herald a new departure. We now look to the intergovernmental conference you have secured to put in place the institutional building blocks of the Union's future. "

Andrew Duff (UK, Lib Dem), ALDE spokesperson on Constitutional affairs welcomed the signing of the Declaration as a valuable exercise for the European Council, obliging various reluctant European leaders to focus for once on the common interest of all Europe.

He asked Chancellor Merkel to confirm that the German presidency was firmly in favour of improving rather than impoverishing the constitutional treaty in order to ensure its early ratification:

"The forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference should not be allowed to pull apart the comprehensive package deal agreed between the institutions and among the member states. Its focus, instead, should be on reforming the common policies of the Union, making them more responsive to contemporary concerns and future challenges."