Response to the Council and Commission statements 10th October 2007

Speech delivered on Mon 15th Oct 2007

Graham Watson, on behalf of the ALDE Group. - Mr President, Prime Minister Sócrates must feel like England's Henry V before the battle of Agincourt: hostile governments preparing for a fight, intent on weakening, even perhaps vetoing, treaty reform. President-in-Office, your Prime Minister must hold firm to Europe's red lines and he must deliver next week a treaty able to underpin a strong, responsive and effective Union. So it is 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more', for what should be the final battle in this constitutional war.

This Parliament will be your foot soldiers. We know that failure to agree on treaty reform would be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. Why? Because the status quo has not worked, does not work and never can work. What Council unanimity means in practice is that essential legislation is either shelved or lowered to the level of the common denominator. In an increasingly cut-throat, globalising world, where challenges like climate change, migration and terrorism demand radical responses, the lowest common denominator is just not good enough.

It may not be the Constitution but, for all its legalese, the Reform Treaty is a document which can quietly revolutionise Europe. It develops democracy, putting codecision and qualified majority voting at the heart of decision-making. It favours subsidiarity, with a clearer division of competences, reinforcing the role of national parliaments and the Union's single legal personality, and it helps transparency, extending the ordinary legislative procedure to cover freedom, security and justice - an area where laws which breach the spirit of a rights-respecting Union have been made behind closed doors for too long.

The draft text of your amending Treaty is not without its faults: the loss of Europe's symbols is a blow to federalists, as is the fudge on voting systems wrought by the Poles. But we can live with them, so long as the Ioannina Compromise is not anchored in the Treaty for all time.

One thing we cannot live without, however, is a definition of European citizenship in Article 8 of the Treaty of European Union, because citizenship is a symbol which, unlike a flag or an anthem, has a real life, real implications for over 450 million people.

Similarly, calling our Foreign Minister the 'High Representative' is no grave cause for concern, but a High Representative who is merely a puppet of the Council certainly would be. Parliament and the Commission must unite to ensure that the joint character of the external action service is respected in full, and that the Court of Justice oversees the use of personal data within the common foreign and security policy.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we cannot have two classes of citizen. That goes entirely against the spirit of European integration and we must do our damnedest to ensure that British and Polish opt-outs are not preserved in perpetuity by demanding a clause allowing revocation without reconvening the IGC.

It is not only opt-outs we must guard against: it is also 'opt-ins'. If not properly formulated, they could allow governments first to water down, and then to wash their hands of, essential Community laws in justice and home affairs after five years of dialogue and debate. If certain countries cannot accept reasonable compromise, our message should be this: they should start thinking about an amicable divorce from the Union and cease holding it hostage to their own vested interests, for the interests of Europe must take precedence over these.

(Applause)

So I urge the Council, the Commission and our own representatives, in Shakespeare's words: 'Stiffen your sinews ..., Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height' in defence of our common interest.

(Applause)