President. – (NL) The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on:

- the report by the European Council and the statement by the Commission on the European Council Meeting of 7 to 10 December 2000 in Nice;

- the statement by the officiating President of the Council on the French Presidency.

  Bethell (PPE-DE). – Mr President, on a point of order. This has great relevance to the matter we are discussing since it touches on the freedom of the press and the independent ownership of the media in Russia. A few hours ago the owner of most of Russia's independent television, Mr Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested in Spain. I am told he is due to be deported to Russia. I should like to protest at this most serious development and ask that investigations be made. Mr Gusinsky is presently in an aircraft on his way to Madrid where he faces deportation to Russia for criticising the Russian Government in his media activities.

  President. – Lord Bethell, I think we would agree with you. We will look into the matter. We will make a note of it now and naturally we feel like you that the freedom of the press must continue to be observed in that part of the world.

  Bayrou (PPE-DE). – (FR) Mr President, it is my turn to salute the President of the Commission, who is here, and the Presidency of the Council, which is coming, and to underline that there has probably never been such unanimity expressed in this Parliament on the results of a summit. This morning we heard every group speak of failure. If we look for the causes of that failure, the main reason seems to be that in Nice we saw the European project suffer a little more damage and the European dream recede a little further.

What is that dream about? It is not about a trading area. It is not even about a cooperation area. The European dream is about a continent with common values building itself into a political power. Put another way, it is about neighbours who regard each other as members of the same family, and decide to build a ship together to weather the storms. But that would mean recognising that the common project is more important than selfish interests. Now, in Nice – and this is the criticism we all have – the project was not being considered, only the interests were being considered. It is as if the ship were already built and we were at the stage of sharing out the cabins, the officers’ uniforms and the cargo. That explains why many of us found Nice heartbreaking.

It was heartbreaking to see the debates concentrating on who would get one vote more or one vote less, and who would gain – Germany or France, the Netherlands or Belgium, Portugal or Spain. The only question that was never asked was whether or not Europe would gain. The results were heartbreaking. In future it will be necessary to assemble three different majorities for a decision to be taken – 75% of the votes, 50% of the Member States, and 62% of the populations. That is inexplicably Byzantine for the citizens. Heartbreaking results for the Commission which was regarded, not as the guardian of the general interest, but as yet another intergovernmental body, wrenched away from the collegiate rule and symbolically excluded from the ‘confessionals’. Heartbreaking results for Parliament: the refusal to see majority decisions seriously extended; the exclusion of Parliament from codecision and – I say this in passing – the shocking fact that the composition was fixed without Parliament even being consulted on that composition.

Finally and above all, heartbreaking results for the citizens, who find themselves excluded once and for all from these carpet salesmen’s debates about a Europe where they are condemned never to understand anything. The European dream must be relaunched and the European project rebuilt. That will be the whole purpose of the third stage, the new stage we are entering.

(Applause)

  Berès (PSE). – (FR) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, one image strikes us as we leave Nice behind. There are basically two Europes: one that works and one that asks itself questions.

The one that works is the one that has after all, it seems to me, spent the six months getting the work done in six essential areas, under the leadership of the French Presidency. Let us just note for the record the Social Agenda and the European company; strengthening Euroland and the tax package; the conference on commitment capability and the progress of Defence Europe; safety, whether in food or at sea; young people’s mobility and the recognition of the specific features of sport or the Media plus programme; and the important statement on services of general interest.

Yes, practical Europe continues to make progress, but what struck our fellow citizens at Nice was that the Europe asking itself where it is going and what it wants sometimes looks all at sea.

There is one piece of good news, certainly. Europe is now ready, thirteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to welcome the Central and Eastern European countries knocking at our door. But as we said in this Parliament, a narrow agenda means the issues on the table have to be dealt with. It does not offer a way out. At Maastricht, we had the euro to dream about. At Amsterdam, we had the area of freedom, security and justice, and the employment chapter. But at Nice, there was nothing but the crude sharing out of power and then we saw national egoism on parade. There will be no Nice leftovers, but was there a European spirit at Nice? We are not sure there was. We all know there is a collective responsibility for this sad balance sheet, be it that of the ‘small countries’ or the ‘big countries’, be it that of the founding countries or those joining later.

Nice will make enlargement possible, but without a plan, without a soul, without ambition, without vision. We can say what we like about the state of mind of our fellow citizens, but the responsibility is ours and they expect us to deliver this European project, this European dream.

I have a few comments to make, and the first is on the Charter. The Heads of State and Government sometimes give the impression that they almost took themselves by surprise at the Cologne European Council when they initiated a process whose results, in the end, would frighten them. How can we accept the fact that this Charter, which carries our dreams, hopes and ambitions, should in the end be proclaimed on the sly and that, at the end of the day, the only thing proposed for 2004 is an examination of the status of the Charter? There is no longer even any mention of its possible incorporation and, in the final analysis, the only institution to emerge from this exercise strengthened is the Court of Justice, which will be able to incorporate this Charter into Community legislation, even before the Heads of State and Government.

Then there is the issue of chief concern to this Parliament, qualified majority voting. How could we not express our disappointment? The scope of qualified majority is narrower than expected. On the essential issues of tax and social affairs, there is no progress. Things are more difficult because instead of just one criterion, there are three criteria to be fulfilled. Things are more complicated because there are these appeal clauses in the new Treaty, making the process even more incomprehensible to our fellow citizens.

From Parliament’s viewpoint, alongside qualified majority there is still the issue of codecision. For us, that is essential. It is sometimes caricatured as not being democratic, as taking too long, but democracy takes time, and time is necessary for debates. We call for that debate to be launched.

Sometimes, it has seemed as if, at the end of the day, in the conference, at Nice, the European Parliament was serving as an adjustment variable. But yes, Mr Bayrou, let us admit that we also bear the responsibility for that. We were not capable of expressing how we wanted Parliament organised.

On method, I think the Nice perspectives, from that point of view, are very interesting.

The Heads of State and Government have just recognised at Nice what we were saying after Amsterdam: the Intergovernmental Conference method is no longer successful for Europe. So we welcome the prospect of a new method and we trust that, with the hope offered by the possibility of enhanced cooperation, Europe will continue to advance and will be capable of drafting a constitution for tomorrow which restores our fellow citizens’ confidence in this tremendous project that is the European adventure.

  Duff (ELDR). – Mr President, despite what the President of the Republic says about the problems faced, in view of the spectacle at Nice, one must question whether the Union is really and truly prepared for enlargement. The candidates cannot have been pleased at the sight of the scramble for national power and status among the prime ministers.

Sadly the common cause of Europe was a marginal factor. For the decisions on Council voting and seats in Parliament a more suitable venue would have been the casino at Cannes rather than the Acropolis at Nice, with Mr Chirac playing the role of chief croupier.

Particularly regrettable was the failure to make reference to the Charter – a failure that will bring legal uncertainty and political frustration.

However, my greatest fear is that Britain, France and Germany will now be able to subvert the delicate balance developed between states of various sizes and between the institutions over several decades. We will resist this forcefully.

  Maes (Verts/ALE). – (NL) Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as far as we are concerned, the outcome of the Nice Summit has not prepared the EU sufficiently for enlargement. In the twelve candidate countries, people prefer to talk in terms of the unification of Europe. That is quite revealing. We, i.e. many European citizens, grew up after the Second World War hoping that a united Europe would be able to play a part in the world some day for the sake of the freedom and welfare of humanity, of its own citizens and peoples. Yet this seems to be an even more distant dream than we had hoped now that Nice is over. After all, Nice was primarily an attempt on the part of the Member States to reach a settlement behind closed doors on the Amsterdam leftovers, with the safeguarding of national interests uppermost in their minds. But what they did not do was endeavour to equip the EU to pursue enlargement. Quite a number of speakers have made the same point this morning and I wholeheartedly agree with them.

As representative of the parties united in the European Free Alliance, I would like to alert the Commission, but particularly the Council, to the dangers, should the EU wish to be no more than an intergovernmental association. The States preparing for accession will copy the example of our own Member States’ egoism. The regions and peoples that do not have their own state will also weigh the situation up. They will work out what they stand to gain in Scotland, Catalonia and Flanders if, instead of playing the federal game, they opt to become a Member State themselves, with a guaranteed Commissioner, guaranteed clout in the Council, and a larger number of seats in the European Parliament than they can hope for at present. Must we give up the dream of a united Europe? I think not. We are obliged to put our hopes in the post Nice process. We want this to be a real process in which the balance between the institutions of the Union and those of the Member States and the constitutive regions must be defined with respect for the subsidiarity principle.

  Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL). – (SV) Mr President, there is a quotation from George Orwell’s book, Animal Farm which, in a way, describes what happened in Nice. It reads, ‘Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.’ Translated into what happened in Nice, this could read, ‘All EU countries are equal, but it is the large countries which decide’.

What happened in Nice was not only that the European Union’s large Member States set the agenda, but that they also brought about Treaty changes which guarantee them the same power in an enlarged EU. On the basis of the Treaty of Nice, an enlarged EU will become a Union which is more centralised and in which the small countries pay the whole price of enlargement. For the Swedish negotiators, it would appear to have been more important to please the large Member States than to fight for our own influence. Sweden is therefore to be given fewer votes than comparable Member States.

It is hard to see what there is in the Nice decisions which really makes enlargement of the EU any the easier. The decision-making process in the Council is to become more complicated, at the same time as it is to become more difficult to take decisions. Nice means more supranationalism and centralism, which are precisely what the EU did not need. The EU’s real problems are the lack of democracy and grassroots support, but those questions were not dealt with at all at the Nice Summit. I can also inform this Assembly that the results of a Swedish opinion poll were published today, showing that only 38 per cent of the population want to remain in the European Union.

  Dupuis (TDI). – (FR) Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we should honour the French Presidency, we should honour President Chirac. He was at the coalface, he fought and conquered for his vision of Europe – because he did have a vision. Congratulations too, to President Aznar, who won the ‘Bingo’ at the Nice Council. Congratulations to the British, who do not have to thump the table any more because they have found out how to stay close to the leader as we were taught to do by the great Dutch cycling champion, Zoetemelk: they cashed in too.

It is our Parliament and our Commission, Mr Prodi, that lacks vision. It was our Parliament and our Commission that failed to realise there was a plan to assassinate the Commission: the assassination of the Commission will take place in a few years’ time. A Commission with a commissioner for each Member State sanctions the transfer of all the Commission’s important issues to the Council. That means the death of the Commission, and our Parliament would rather gnaw on the bones thrown to it at the Cologne Council than confront this fundamental problem: without a supranational Commission, the Europe we want will not come into being. There will be a Europe of nations, there will be no federal Europe.

This is our last chance. If we want to get back on the federal track, there is only one solution, Mr Prodi. It is the election of the Commission President by universal suffrage and powerful legitimacy for the Commission, and unless there is a real alliance on specific aims like those, between the Commission, Parliament and Member States like Belgium – which fought hard during this Council, represented by Mr Verhofstadt – then there will no longer be a federal Europe, there will be the Europe of nations which we have never wanted.

  Krarup (EDD). – (DA) Mr President, the fairly unanimous message from the President-in-Office of the Council, the Commission and heads of government is basically that the Treaty of Nice secures the framework for the unification of Europe. Some are happier than others about this, but the main message is clear: Europe can now be unified in an enlarged democratic EU which is also close to the people, thanks to the Treaty of Nice. These messages contain such huge and monstrous distortions of the truth that we have to go back to history’s most famous propagandists in order to find exact comparisons. For the fact is that what has been decided in Nice is enhanced cooperation, superpower domination, a Charter of Fundamental Rights, military development and the monitoring of democracy. What has been decided is unnecessary to enlargement, and what is necessary to enlargement has not been decided.

The Treaty of Nice contains a series of quite decisive steps towards an EU of élites, together with corresponding steps away from a Europe of democracies and of the people. Centralised power and superpower dominance are increasing drastically, as if we had not already had enough of these. Is this a unification and democratisation of Europe? No, it is an extension to the power of the élites and, in reality, the unfortunate agenda for Eastern Europe is, of course, subjection. It is we who decide about the applicant States. The EU does not negotiate with them. They are not involved in deciding what the Treaty of Nice will contain, and the EU dictates all the conditions of participation. Moreover, none – and I repeat, none – of the crucial problems associated with the enlargement project and involving the integration of incompatible social and economic systems are recognised as problems. The EU and the EU’s policy are not the solution, but the problem.

  Brok (PPE-DE). – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have little to say today. Just under a year ago, you sent Mr Tsatsos and me to attend preparations for this Intergovernmental Conference. Today I can tell you that our mission was a failure. Our remit was to help make the European Union more democratic and more capable of action so that it would be ready to cope with the enlargement which we so long for. It is not more capable of action – on the contrary. The decision-making mechanism in the Council of Ministers has become far more complicated and the hurdles have been raised. It will now be much easier to form a blocking minority in the Council of Ministers.

In the decisive areas in which we require qualified majority voting if the European Union is to be capable of action with 27 Member States, we failed dismally. On several counts we even lost ground. We have to admit that we have not complied with the principle of Amsterdam from the democratic viewpoint. Where qualified majority voting is enshrined in legislation, we have qualified majority voting. There are four fundamental areas, including structural policy, Article 133 and two other instances in which the European Parliament has been excluded from policy-making. In other words, the democratic deficit is now even greater. Plus, the number of seats in the European Parliament has been laid down against our own wishes and without consulting us. I find this situation intolerable.

Individual interests have prevailed. The winners are those who asserted their national interests. And they have all gone home to celebrate. No-one claims to have done anything for Europe; on the contrary, everyone is saying: I blocked something to protect my own national interests from the veto.

This method has seen its heyday, this system of a Europe of chancelleries is on its last legs. We need a transparent, democratic, citizens' Europe if we are to have any chance of developing. Our method must be a method which allows us to set up an Intergovernmental Conference through a convention at which parliamentarians, not chancelleries have their say if we are to take this continent forward. For the rest, when it comes to law-making, the future Council of Ministers must be an open, parliamentary organisation in which transparency and scrutiny have their place, because we cannot carry on as we are.

The only consequence which I can draw from all this is that, when it comes to voting on the Treaty of Nice, my vote will be a no vote.

(Applause)

  Napolitano (PSE), chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. – (IT) Mr President, in the coming weeks we shall have to carry out a rigorous, in-depth analysis of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference and the fundamental questions which it has thrown up. I will not go back to the comments of the different speakers regarding the method nor the other subjects such as those covered by Mr Brok just now.

Of the fundamental questions, the first is that the Nice conclusions do not guarantee on an institutional level the necessary continuity and the necessary development of the process of integration into the larger Union which is about to come into being. Therefore, even though we may not call them leftovers, the issues which were not adequately resolved in Nice will inevitably arise again. I refer to the changeover in qualitatively essential areas to qualified majority voting and to the very procedures for taking majority decisions. Time will show us which issues we need to return to, whether we like it or not.

The second fundamental issue is political rather than institutional. The atmosphere of the Nice Council, the lack of openness, as President Prodi said, the blinkered vision characterising the attitudes of the different governments – the narrow-minded defence of national interests or policies – explain, it is sad to say, the root of the problem: a serious loss of the sense of shared European interest, of a common European vision.

Well, the appropriate responses to both the institutional and political fundamental questions, which are our most negative legacy from the Nice Council, must be sought in dialogue, in the evaluation and development process which must be pursued under the title "the future of the Union". We must reflect seriously on what has happened. We managed to avoid an open crisis which would have threatened enlargement by coming to a last minute agreement on the Treaty, but we are left with a latent crisis which will have to be dealt with.

Building a unified Europe requires far-sighted vision and coherence. In response to President Chirac, we are not calling for haste; we are asking not to have to take one step forwards and then one backwards, not to call for promotion of the drafting and proclamation of the Charter when we do not then dare to include it in the Treaty, not to call for the new wording of the Convention to be produced when we then do not even dare to suggest it as a potential post-Nice procedure. We want the objective of constitutionalisation to be called by its name; we are asking for a response, with a clear, coherent vision of the future of Europe, to the disappointments and fears which are spreading amongst the citizens over the current or future nature of the Union.

Mr Prodi, Commissioner Barnier, this is our task. We have every confidence that Parliament and the Commission will proceed together in this direction, as they have done throughout this difficult year 2000.

  Malmström (ELDR). – (SV) Mr President, the most important result from Nice was that, in spite of everything, there was a treaty, so that a place can now be prepared for the applicant States. Otherwise, the Summit was neither especially historic nor successful.

On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I should like to discuss five points in the brief minute I have:

1. It is not acceptable for the large Member States to employ blackmail tactics against the small countries. This is contrary to the whole idea of the EU.

2. It is tragic that no further progress was made on the issue of qualified majority voting. Now, the EU is to become sluggish and powerless to act, and decision-making is to become more complicated.

3. Closed and exclusive, the Intergovernmental Conference is an old-fashioned and undemocratic method. The people must be involved in future.

4. The forthcoming constitutional debate must lead to simplification, distribution of powers and increased democracy. The EU must acquire a common constitution.

5. A new Intergovernmental Conference must not be used as an alibi for postponing enlargement. Our new colleagues must be allowed to participate in the discussions as new Members on equal conditions.

  Frassoni (Verts/ALE). – (IT) Mr President, President Chirac has played down the negative reactions of many of the Members to the outcome of Nice, describing them as unrealistic and not pragmatic.

In reality, it is the President who is being unrealistic if he thinks that it will be possible to enlarge the Union with such a Treaty. In my opinion, it is not more realistic to fight for one's own national prestige than to fight for the efficient functioning of the Union, and I would not say that huge numbers of European citizens came out to follow the naval battle fought by their leaders at Nice.

My feeling is that the French Presidency's most serious error was to run the debate along the lines of a battle of powers between States – a mean, shameless fight over details – rather than as a relevant debate on the Union's policies. Terrified of jeopardising France's equal voting rights with Germany, the Presidency docilely allowed its proposals to extend qualified majority voting to 40 or so subjects to be knocked down to less than half this number. Yet even the pro-Europe- States did little to fight for its cause and, in the end, bowed before a disappointing compromise.

As for the European Parliament, only the Commission defended its legitimacy and I therefore thank President Prodi and Commissioner Barnier for this, but they were alone in their endeavours and this was reflected in the final compromise.

We truly hope this will be the last Intergovernmental Conference, considering that the Summit revealed a breakdown in Community solidarity. The real winners in this Conference were Blair and Aznar, the Euro-sceptics. It is their Europe, the Europe of the market and the right to veto which has won the battle. Our Europe, the Europe of democracy and a sustainable future, lost.

There is one small ray of light although even that was mortgaged to the hilt by the French Presidency, and that is what is known as the post-Nice process. However, there are ambiguities which require urgent clarification. First of all, 2004 is too far away: we need to act sooner than that. We want a democratic process with the objective of a European Constitution to be defined by June and launched at the end of the year: the Charter took 8 months to draw up so a Constitution can be produced in less than 4 years. This is our next battle. I hope that, this time, the governments will fight with us rather than on the opposing side.

  Cossutta (GUE/NGL). – (IT) Mr President, we had said that a failure would be preferable to a disappointing conclusion. In practice, we did not fail completely, but neither did we reach a conclusion.

What came out of the Summit were contradictions and deferrals. The Charter of Fundamental 0Rights was proclaimed but has not been included in the Treaties and it will therefore not become legally binding immediately. The need for a European Constitution is greater than ever.

The principle of European military defence was accepted but, for now, its function has not been clearly defined. That can only be guaranteed by making it autonomous from the United States and moving on from NATO, which is now completely outdated.

The need for a social agenda covering employment, health, education, the environment and rights was mentioned, but nothing concrete was specified, not even the barriers to be overcome or how to overcome them to guarantee justice and freedom.

Finally, enlargement to the east and to the south was planned and promised. That is all well and good, but the institutional rules to make it operative have not been decided upon with certainty. Individual interests and privileges prevail. We are even further from achieving the Europe we want after Nice than we were before. The Council must start to take notice of the European Parliament, leaders must start to take notice of the national parliaments and the national parliaments must start to take notice of the views of their citizens.

  Madelin (PPE-DE). – (FR) Mr President, Nice was, and should have been, a historic date, the kick-off for the new Europe, the Europe of the new century, the great Europe, the Europe of all the Europeans. And what a fine project, eleven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall! But for that, we would have needed vision, ambition, endurance, generosity of spirit, audacity. Alas, alas, alas!

We have long known that the great Europe could not be introduced through the institutions of the little Europe. We know we should think about Europe differently and we know we need new institutions. But, without a vision of the future, without knowing how to ask the right questions, we ended up with dithering, horse-trading and, finally, tinkering in Nice.

Before the Nice Summit the French Presidency was saying ‘better no agreement than a bad agreement’, and this morning, unless I misunderstood, we were in essence told ‘better a bad agreement than no agreement at all’. Certainly, the Nice agreement opens the way to membership for the candidate countries, but we are advancing down that road in the fog, foot on the brake, certain the European vehicle will not reach its destination in good shape.

So let us forget about Nice now, and think about post-Nice –and you will forgive me if I pin my hopes on the plan for a grand convention advanced by Belgium for its Presidency, because the evidence is there, we must do something new, we must change the method, we must accelerate history: 2004 is too late, it is too far off, it is too dangerous. Yes, a grand convention including the European institutions, the governments, the parliaments of the Member States and the candidate countries which absolutely must be associated with this common house. That is my hope.

  Hänsch (PSE). – (DE) Mr President, the results of Nice are disappointing, unsatisfactory and petty. The Union's ability to act on decisive matters has not been improved. The outcome of the compromises brokered in Nice is not more transparency, it is more cover-up. The democratic credibility of European policy has not been enhanced; on the contrary, the door has been opened to the insidious intergovernmentalisation of European policy and, by extension, to even greater bureaucratisation. We shall, of course, have the post-Nice process – that, at least, is a faint light at the end of the tunnel and we must not underestimate it.

Enlargement has given you, has given us all the same task as Monnet and Schuman had fifty years ago: the task of developing a method, structure and vision for the future of Europe. At that time, this applied to half of Europe; now we must develop it for all of Europe. Enlargement would be a chance to do so, a chance, Mr President-in-Office, which you missed in Nice. That is my main criticism of you. It may well be that Nice prepares the EU for enlargement numerically. But the historic failing of Nice is that your resolutions are not based on any identifiable vision for a Union of 27 Member States. It is this spirit, the spirit of Monnet, Schuman and others, which was missing in Nice and which was sorely needed. Instead, the spirit of Nice clearly amounted to wondering how to block, how to intergovernmentalise, how to be feted at home as the defender of national interests, rather than how to take the European Union forward. If Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer, de Gasperi et al had acted thus, we would never have had European Communities and, as a result, we would still not have European Union. President Chirac referred to Heads of Government who point out that public opinion still does not understand or accept more or a different sort of progress. That may well be. But that is because, that is mainly because none of the heads of government has the courage to lead and educate public opinion pro-actively, rather than running along behind it. What is heart-breaking about Europe is that so few of its many leaders are prepared to risk their political career by standing or falling by the unification of Europe.

(Applause)

  Costa, Paolo (ELDR). – (IT) Mr President, I am one of those who had for some time been placing their hopes in the miracle of Nice: an Intergovernmental Conference, a Summit, a Treaty which would both reorganise the European institutions and further the process of enlargement. But the miracle did not happen! The clearest gauges of its limited success are the announcement of another Intergovernmental Conference in 2004 and the quality and import of the subjects at the centre of the post-Nice debate, which range from the distribution of competences within the Union to the value of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The miracle failed to materialise in the substance of the decisions on institutional reform. This failure was due essentially to the defensive tactics of the governments and their powers of veto, not to mention the limited involvement of the European Parliament. This is a sign of short-sightedness in that, today, Parliament is the only Union body which legitimises the will of the people. The miracle did not come to pass in terms of the organisation of the shared legacy of the Charter of Fundamental Rights either. Parliament and the Commission have declared that they would abide by it. What is preventing the Council from deciding to do the same?

There is just one small satisfaction: enlargement. Thanks to Nice, the institutional barrier can no longer be invoked. The winners at Nice, the only winners, were the candidate countries, whose path towards the gates of the European Union is being cleared. Only those who have always believed in the strategic value of enlargement have a genuine right to rejoice with them.

  Voggenhuber (Verts/ALE). – (DE) Mr President, the main aspects of European integration remained unresolved in Nice and will remain so for many years. However, the national governments' claim to be the constitutional legislator of Europe has finally been laid to rest, as has the hope that the heads of state and government think of themselves as the trustees of the idea of European unification. No, what they have done is to turn Europe into a bazaar at which nationalistic, national interests are bartered. Amsterdam and Nice have given us a Europe of imperial rulers, a Europe of national administrations, not a Europe of political unification.

What were they supposed to be doing? According to Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union, they were supposed to be creating an ever closer political union. But no, the heads of state and government blocked the idea of European unification. Back home from Nice, they are priding themselves not on what they have given Europe, but on what they have withheld from Europe. They are holding the flags of national veto, hindrance and delay high. This is not the Europe which we have been talking about for decades. It is a Europe of administrations. Now it is the turn of the parliaments, now the time has come to show that the purpose of parliaments is to tame the power of governments and ...

(The President cut the speaker off)

  Van Velzen (PPE-DE). – (NL) Mr President, it was the task of the Nice Summit to develop a Union capable of absorbing twelve new Member States. A European Union which can function efficiently, transparently and democratically. After all, the countries from Central and Eastern Europe want a robust Union, a Union capable of taking decisions.

It is to be welcomed that the timetable adopted in Nice, with regard to the accession of the first countries from Central and Eastern Europe, is in line with Parliament’s timetable. But what is striking is that the Council spent four days in seclusion in Nice giving more attention to its own concerns. There was no answer to the question as to how the institutions of the European Union could function more effectively in an enlarged Union. The Council really looked after number one; to be sure, it improved things for the Commission to a certain extent and put a little sweetener Parliament’s way, as befits a father. But it all compares most unfavourably with the attention the Council gave itself.

Four main problems loom large. Firstly, institutional imbalance: a great deal for the Council and not much for the Commission and Parliament. Secondly, national interests have triumphed. Only the Belgian Head of Government, Mr Verhofstadt, was a notable exception. Thirdly, a democratic deficit. Old deficits have not been made good and now new ones have come along. Fourthly, and finally, the decision-making mechanisms cannot be explained back home. It all gets very complicated. When Mr Prodi says there are no more leftovers from Nice, I would make so bold as to doubt his word. We must introduce qualified majority decision-making for the essential topics, or else the situation will become untenable. Nice will go down in history as the Summit of lost opportunity, the Summit of lack of leadership in Europe, the Summit of opposition and the Summit in whose wake the people felt even more isolated from the European Union.

  Tsatsos (PSE). – (EL) Mr President, the purpose of the Intergovernmental Conference was to prepare the European Union so that it would be able to operate after enlargement. I think the European Parliament is right to base its evaluation on two criteria, namely efficiency and democratisation. As the European Parliament's representatives, Mr Brok and I fought for both, but without the required results.

We do, of course, admit that some progress was made on both counts. As far as efficiency is concerned, qualified majority voting was introduced in several instances, Parliament was granted the right to litigate in matters of a constitutional nature and the system of reinforced cooperation was made more practicable. Similarly, a number of positive moves were made as regards the European Commission. As far as democratisation is concerned, the points worth noting are that codecision has been extended on several counts and the European legislator has been authorised to define the status of European political parties and crucial preventive measures to defend democracy and freedom in the Member States.

Unfortunately, however, for the European Parliament, the shortcomings in the Treaty have been exacerbated. Unanimity has been abolished for a whole series of legislative issues, but without giving Parliament codecision powers. The Charter of Fundamental Rights has not received so much as a mention in the Treaty. The European Parliament has too little say in the reinforced cooperation procedure. Fundamental areas still require unanimity. The decision-making system in the Council may well incorporate the principle of a double majority, but it has become somewhat complicated and has upset the balance between large and small Member States.

Finally, the European Parliament will face a huge dilemma when it comes to make its final appraisal of the Treaty at the beginning of next year due to the clause on post-Nice developments. This clause adopts the European Parliament's opinion that further development of the European Union will be impossible using the intergovernmental method applied in the past. This method has had it. The clause on post-Nice developments, for all its exaggerated and wholly inaccurate eulogy of the Treaty, does give some light at the end of the tunnel, to quote my friend Mr Hänsch. Given the procedure described, new proposals for the Europe of tomorrow need to be drafted by political and social bodies – mainly the national parliaments and the European Parliament. Without this clause on post-Nice developments, the European Parliament would, I think, have been unable to accept the Treaty. With this clause, it is simply a poor treaty. However, careful thought and consideration are needed before the European Parliament decides to reject it.

  Moscovici, Council. – (FR) Mr President, first I would like to join in with the praises you have heaped upon Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos. I think all of us, from our own positions, worked as well as possible with Commissioner Barnier to contribute to this Treaty of Nice.

It is true – I shall paraphrase Mr Bayrou – that I have been sitting here since this morning; first next to the President of the Republic, then by myself, and the criticism has struck me as moderate and friendly, but criticism all the same. Failure, disarray, skimped treaty, I do not want to summarise everything that has been said. Anyway, I notice that they reflect a contradiction we all live with. Europe is our common heritage, but all of us here belong to different nations and different parties, and the criticism of the Treaty of Nice – criticism of the European Union in general – is unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, utterly contradictory.

Some people want more of this, some people want more of that: some people want more Europe, some people want more social Europe, some people want more liberal Europe, some people want less Europe full stop, and we have had some very fine samples of all that this morning. Some people want more federalism, some people want less and that is where we have to understand that no one can be completely satisfied. I think that deep down it is in the nature of a European compromise not to be satisfying.

I am not saying the Treaty of Nice is exactly what we wanted but, to summarise what I think, it is the best possible treaty given the state of our institutions, the state of our vision of Europe and indeed the state of our ideas, and the state of Europe itself. Like the President of the Republic this morning, I too try to imagine what would happen if we had arrived here without a Treaty of Nice. The consequences of that for Europe would have been totally incalculable. I think it would have complicated enlargement and I do see satisfaction amongst the candidate countries. I think confidence in Europe would have been shaken in economic terms, and operationally we would have lost several years of ground. The French Presidency takes some satisfaction in having carried out its task, which consisted quite simply of achieving closure three and a half years after Amsterdam and five years after we began to think about institutional reform.

I would just like to take up some of the criticisms, or lessons, I have heard here and there. First on the reweighting grid which has shocked François Bayrou, for instance, and bothered Pervenche Berès. We should not forget that this is actually the first time since 1957 that the grid has been genuinely reformed and revised. We failed in Amsterdam, despite excellent work by the Dutch Presidency. Here we succeeded, although it is an extremely sensitive and complex issue. No, we were not playing roulette. I do not think the President of the Republic has a croupier’s temperament. We could not make everyone happy, so we tried not to make everyone unhappy. It was a bit like squaring the circle.

We had a system which was actually simple, but from our point of view – which was not necessarily the Commission’s, and it will perhaps set that out for you – it produced excessive distortions, that is, the principle of the double majority. We have tried to work on a principle of simple reweighting in this squaring of the circle, and I think that on the whole the result is balanced. I would say to Mrs Sjöstedt that I sincerely believe the agreement has not been made on the backs of the ‘small countries’. There is real redistribution in their favour, plus guarantees. For example, in the early days of the European Union, as you know, two so-called ‘big’ countries could achieve a blocking minority, and today it takes three. In a Europe with 27 countries, at least one additional Member State will be needed, so no longer three, but four countries will have to join forces for a blocking minority.

Anyway, before Nice we had the opposite situation where the ‘big countries’ were under-represented and redistribution was needed for them. In addition during the debate we added two so-called ‘safety nets’. A safety net of Member States: any qualified majority must include a majority of the Member States. There was a strong demand for that from those calling themselves ‘small countries’. Then, the 21 least populated countries, representing 30% of the population, will have 50.7% of the votes in the Council. There is also a demographic safety net. I honestly believe we have a balanced system – though I will not claim that it is simple and straightforward.

Lots of speakers have mentioned the post-Nice process. Apparently that is an essential subject for Members of the European Parliament, which is not surprising. We often talked about it here, in October and November. The Presidency has never denied the importance of reflection – as you know – but do recognise that we had to concentrate on the difficult issues, and before we could have post-Nice, we had to have Nice. But I do not think we have ever smothered post-Nice, we have been keen to think about it. Other methods will be needed. Several people have mentioned it here and besides, you will have noticed that the conclusions on the post-Nice process include wide consultation of all sorts of players in society, including Parliament, and concluding with what we hope will be a short IGC.

But, at the same time – and I say this amicably to Elmar Brok – I do not think the Council can meet under the control of the European Parliament. Yes, it can be involved, but I am not sure that more control or presence would facilitate matters. We operate under constitutional systems and the powers must not get confused. It is difficult. I belong to a country that invented separation of powers and I think what we sometimes suffer from is insufficient separation of them. But it is a good system which has stood the test of time.

We need to think in depth about the future – and again I note the same contradictions in passing: those who want a post-Nice review are not necessarily in agreement about its objective. Take, for example, the debate on the constitution, where some want a federal constitution and others want a constitution based on subsidiarity. Before agreement is reached, the European Union must continue to operate. It is a thankless task. It is a painful, difficult task, but it needs to be done. This reform has been in construction for five years. The French Presidency has carried it out without self-satisfaction, but with satisfaction in the work done. Later we will see, together, all together, how to proceed. The milestones are in place, enlargement is possible, the European Parliament will have its place in the debate and in going deeper into the routes and ideas.

I also want to say to Giorgio Napolitano – who has done a lot of work on this issue – that in the end the atmosphere at Nice, the spirit of the Heads of State and Government, and the spirit of the Commission was not defensive of national interests, but seeking a common direction within those national interests. One can understand that Heads of State and Government are preoccupied with the sensitivities of their own public opinions and Parliaments. But I say this sincerely to the European Parliament – we cannot build Europe on the backs of the citizens or behind their backs.

This will be one of my last speeches to you and I would like, in conclusion, to say first what a pleasure it has been to speak here on so many occasions, with the Commission – the President of the Commission – but also to reflect on the role of the European Parliament itself. This will be the only time and I hope you will not mind. When you criticise the Nice European Council and the future Treaty of Nice – the criticism, though varied, is unanimous – be aware that you are also addressing all your governments and all the peoples of Europe they legitimately represent, who have also elected you. I think you should be aware of that because the three institutions, the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council, all represent them, each in their own way: let none consider themselves the sole guardian of the higher European interest, while the others are just traders and shopkeepers. I believe deeply in the Community method, and when we say Community method we mean balance between three institutions which need to coexist and get on well together.

That is what I will take away from this debate, this Presidency and this Intergovernmental Conference. The work has been difficult. I am sure it will be useful for the future of Europe. This is ongoing work, but it cannot continue unless we all work together to uphold the European ideal.

(Applause)

  President. – Thank you very much, Minister. I am sure Parliament will go on to consider the relationship between the institutions.

  Jonckheer (Verts/ALE). – (FR) Mr President, Mr Prodi, Mr Barnier, I would like to speak on two points.

My first point is that, contrary to what Mr Chirac and Mr Prodi have claimed, there are Nice leftovers, not just for the Fifteen but also, even more so, for the Twenty-seven. In effect, the question is: are we ready for enlargement and what are our objectives? And not only is the issue of the Commission a leftover, but the lack of extension of qualified majority voting and codecision strengthens competition between the Member States, between the Fifteen and a fortiori between the Twenty-seven, and undermines the future of the European social model.

As regards post-Nice, the following question has to be dealt with: do we want to continue at the same pace as Fifteen, and a fortiori as Twenty-seven? I do not think that will be possible. We must lift the consensus rule, including in a future convention. The European public interest, of which none of us is sole guardian – Mr Moscovici is right about that – cannot be based on the addition of national interests which are growing and becoming neutralised and in that regard Prime Minister Verhofstadt had a salutary message for us all.

  Méndez de Vigo (PPE-DE). – (ES) Mr President, there is an expression in my language ‘to take French leave,’ which is what the President-in-Office has done, leaving without saying goodbye. Therefore, my first words should be to thank Mr Prodi, who has stayed. The Commission is showing that it is interested in the debate in this Parliament.

As far as the Treaty of Nice is concerned, we can say very little, because we do not yet have the conclusions of the European Council, and therefore, until we see them, we cannot add much.

I think there are two matters in which the European Parliament plays an important role. The first is the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Charter has been proclaimed and that is a good thing. But it has neither been incorporated into the Treaties, nor has a reference to the Charter been put in Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union. And, above all, I have the feeling that the proclamation was not a solemn one. It was a proclamation on the quiet. I would therefore like to thank our President, Mrs Fontaine, and President Prodi for what they have said: for the European Parliament and the Commission, the Charter is law from now onwards, and it is going to have an effect from now onwards. I think that this is positive.

The other point from Nice on which Parliament will judge Nice is the extension of qualified majority voting and Parliament’s codecision. On this subject – from what I have been able to hear here this morning – the news is vague and does not seem to be very promising. We will have to wait before we can establish what Parliament’s opinion is.

I remember that when Dimitris Tsatsos and I drew up the report on the Treaty of Amsterdam, we talked about Ortega y Gasset, who said, quoting old Cervantes, that often you have to choose between staying at an inn or continuing with the journey. Nice is the road to two important things, one of which is enlargement. Enlargement is going to take place – now we know it. This is also the case for the euro. I think that a collapse at Nice would have been a punch below the belt for the euro.

Therefore, perhaps in this Parliament we are in a paradoxical situation that is completely different to Amsterdam. Perhaps, for this Parliament the European Council of Nice has not been positive, as it was in Amsterdam. But perhaps, for the European Union, the European Council of Nice is opening up the way for hope and for the future.

We will see, Mr President, when we read the conclusions. Until then, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats reserves judgement on what its position will be.

  Corbett (PSE). – Mr President, after the Single European Act, after Maastricht, after the Treaty of Amsterdam, this Parliament had to judge the results. In all those cases we reached the conclusion that those treaties were not entirely satisfactory, did not respond to all of our aspirations, but nonetheless represented a step forward and were at least better than the status quo. We recommended that they be ratified.

This time we have a treaty which, at least on one point, represents a step backwards and is arguably worse than the status quo: that is, the new system for qualified majority voting in the Council, which makes reaching a decision even more difficult than it is at present. It introduces a triple threshold: number of states, population, and the percentage of the votes set at a higher level than is the case at the moment. At the moment it is 71% of the votes. That is already very high. It was set high to make sure that under any permutation such a qualified majority represented a majority of the population. Now that we have a population criterion in there anyway, it should have been possible to lower the threshold in terms of the number of votes. Instead it seems that it has been raised, although I speak while waiting to see the final text: apparently there was an adjustment in the last hour of the IGC on that. I will evaluate that outcome when I see the text. Nonetheless that is a very worrying situation.

For the rest the Treaty is a mixture of unsatisfactory and positive things – unsatisfactory but nonetheless better than the status quo, I suppose, at least as regards the extension of qualified majority voting, the extension of the codecision procedure for the European Parliament, and the provisions for enhanced cooperation. That is all better than we have now, even if not all of our requests and desires have been met.

Finally, there are a few positive things: the new version of Article 7 of the Treaty; the article on political parties and their statute; the right of this Parliament to take the other institutions to the Court of Justice – that is also an important factor of political control; the new formula for the European Commission, putting the so-called "lex Prodi" into the Treaty, strengthening the President and the new composition of the Commission – a reasonable compromise which I accept and will work over time; and, as my colleague, Mr Tsatsos pointed out, the way forward to the future. This is not the end of the story. New reforms will come and we must take advantage of that.

To sum up, we have a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. We will now evaluate this in detail. I believe we will recommend ratification and moving forward to a new reform, but we must look at the small print to decide whether that is the right way forward.

  McMillan-Scott (PPE-DE). – Mr President, I apologise because my remarks are slightly ill-prepared. I have come straight from a meeting and, because there are no televisions in the meeting rooms in this building, it is very difficult to keep in touch with what is happening in the Chamber, a deficiency which I hope will be corrected in due course.

Many of us regard the Treaty of Nice as unacceptable but for many different reasons. The great difficulty concerning the Treaty of Nice – as many people have already commented – is that the lack of any text at this time makes it impossible to make a considered judgment. We do not know whether the carpentry shop in Nice has produced a Pandora's box for Commission activism or a coffin for democracy, but – whatever has emerged – it is being French-polished and we hope the final result helps the European Union.

I believe that two failures are the lack of democracy, because the opportunity to open the Council up to public scrutiny has been ignored although many of us feel that this was the time to do it, and the illogicality of the re-weighting of votes, with one approach for the Council and another for the European Parliament. Many people looking at the Treaty of Nice will wonder why it was done in that way. I personally believe that the re-weighting of votes must take account of population, as is done in the European Parliament and should have been done in the Council also.

A further reason for opposing the Treaty of Nice is the development of greater bureaucracy in the European Union. Who can genuinely argue that the thirty areas now under QMV are essential to the enlargement process? I think most of the enlargement countries – while accepting the Treaty as it stands because it exists and opens the door to their accession in due course, sooner rather than later I hope – will look at those points and, like most of us, realise that they have no relevance to the day-to-day affairs of their lives. No reform of the common agricultural policy, no reform of the development policies which are vastly wasteful. Then there is the incorporation as a mandatory mechanism of the Charter of Fundamental Rights: in itself as in the United States today, a recipe for confusion between the courts in the European Union. There is the fact that under enhanced cooperation the European Parliament has no role, although certain leaders of national parties – including the leader of the Labour Party in his Warsaw speech – promised no reform of the structural funds in real terms until 2013. This is not a recipe for enlargement, it is a recipe for more bureaucracy, less democracy.

  Seguro (PSE). – (PT) Mr President, we have already made a thorough assessment of what happened in Nice, but we should remember that Nice began with a very restricted agenda. The Council asked this Parliament not to broaden the agenda because the intention was to concentrate exclusively on the Amsterdam leftovers. The Council said it wanted to do this in order to make the European Union's institutions operationally efficient so that it could work better with 27 Member States than it does today with 15. What was the result of this exercise and this work? The result was, in fact, that the most fundamental and important factor for introducing operational efficiency, decisiveness, flexibility and workability into institution operations was not dealt with at all. What the Council concentrated on most were questions of power; in other words in Nice there were too many calculators and not enough policies. The images coming out of Nice showed a Europe in which every country was trying to look after itself, suggesting that the Europe of the future will be a battle between the large and small countries. I wonder whether these might not be arguments that better serve the interests of the Euro-sceptics and Europe’s enemies. I wonder whether this image we have been given of Nice might not be an appeal to the conscience of convinced Europeans, those who do not just want a single market, those who do not just want a single currency, in the face of what I regard as this "non-time" for Europe.

In my view, Nice was the second part of Amsterdam and we are now in a phase, an interval, between Amsterdam and an IGC to be held in 2004 but with an unknown end-date. Right now it is the duty of convinced pro-Europeans to counter the image that came out of Nice and say that solidarity for us has a meaning and that it is possible to build a Europe in which large and small countries can coexist peacefully; in other words, there are no expendable countries in this European project and national egos are nonsense in this Europe. So I should now like to appeal to the House and the Commission: somebody has to put the case for this European project. The case for the European project is that it is not the sum of national interests but a joint project, as President Romano Prodi has said, and the institutions must now look to the future and join hands so that enlargement can take place, so that the citizens can look on Europe as we would like them to and so that politics can go back to building the European project rather than just upholding power, particularly the power of the larger countries.

  Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (PPE-DE). – (ES) Mr President, it has been said, and I think rightly so, that Europe is born out of necessity and that only when necessity knocks at the door does Europe decide to take a step forward. And necessity gave an urgent knock at the door of Europe in Nice, in the form of sclerosis as a result of the prospect of an enlarged Europe.

There can be many evaluations of what happened in Nice, and we have had ample proof of that this morning and this afternoon in the continuation of the debate. But the European Council in Nice, like many other summits in the history of the European Union, represents a triumph for reality, a triumph of pragmatism over utopianism. Although we would all have liked to increase our powers in codecision – and despite the disputes between large countries, between large and small countries and between small and medium-sized countries – it is obvious that the following, although not spectacular, are all steps in the right direction, as President Prodi said this morning: a Commission whose president has his powers increased; a decision-making process in which more decisions – not all those that we would have wished – are taken by qualified majority; a clarification of the role of enhanced cooperation; and also – why not come out with it? – a reweighting, imperfect though it may be, of the votes in the Council of Ministers.

But Nice, Mr President, is not the end of the road, but the starting point for a new phase with many challenges. We have to successfully complete accession, consolidate the internal market, deliver the single currency, develop a real common foreign and security policy and open up a new debate on the future of Europe. These are challenges that cannot be overcome, Mr President of the Commission, with our backs to the people. And in order to do this we will need more generosity, more realism, a greater involvement of the institutions that defend the Community interests, and in this type of conference, everyone will need to seek, as Jean Monnet said, and I will finish with this, their interest in the common interest.

  Swoboda (PSE). – (DE) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are winners and losers, but Europe cannot claim to be one of the winners and democracy and transparency certainly cannot. That is, in fact, the gist of what President Prodi said today in a commendably clear and unequivocal manner.

Let us take one thing at a time: the charter was not included in the Treaty, not so much as a mention. Progress was made on security and defence policy, it is true, but it has no parliamentary dimension. As far as qualified majority voting is concerned, it has only been extended slightly and the procedure is now even more complicated and less transparent than before. We do, of course, have reinforced cooperation, but how it will work remains to be seen. The ratio between large and small was, in the end, regulated in a perfectly reasonable manner, following a number of totally obtuse and unacceptable suggestions, and the Commission has been strengthened, even if the link with the number of members is not necessarily an overly reasonable or clever decision.

Mr Moscovici is without doubt quite right to say that talking about it among ourselves is not enough; we must tell the people about it. It is true that the people are probably more critical of integration more often than we here in the Chamber. And with a better result, we would probably have had more trouble persuading the people, but then again we would have had more persuasive powers had we been able to bring a better result home from Nice. We would have been able to convey a better, stronger European result to the people with a better and clearer conscience.

I should therefore like to come back to something which has been touched on a few times today already. Yes, we need to analyse the result. But I think that we should not do so until we have a clear and unequivocal promise from the Council as to how the process will operate from now on, i.e. with the close involvement of the European Parliament. What was found and said in Nice is too vague for me: yes to Parliament's involvement. What involvement? I think it is a disgrace if we have to fight yet again for perhaps two representatives to attend as many meetings as possible. It is totally unacceptable. This Parliament must play a leading role in this process, just as it did at the convention. We want to prove to the heads of government that we know best. If we compare the convention with what happened at the Intergovernmental Conference, admittedly with less serious problems than at the Intergovernmental Conference and with fewer national interests than at the Intergovernmental Conference, then the convention and the modus operandi and methods of the convention clearly come out on top. I therefore take the view that we should only apply ourselves in detail to what has come out of Nice once it is clear that the European Parliament will have an important and decisive role in the future process. We want to prove to the heads of government that we know best.

IN THE CHAIR: MR VIDAL-QUADRAS ROCA
Vice-President

  Sudre (PPE-DE). – (FR) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all my colleagues have stressed the expectations that surrounded the Nice Summit, which was intended to allow the European Union to continue operating effectively, democratically and transparently after the historic enlargement we are awaiting. Certainly, the Nice Summit has made it possible to achieve significant progress on all the issues that directly affect the lives of our citizens, whether it be the preservation of health, the protection of the environment, social policy or indeed the adoption of a European Company Statute. Another positive point is that the Charter of Fundamental Rights has been officially proclaimed, even if it is not intended to be binding at this stage. Finally, the decisions taken in the area of the common foreign and security policy represent undeniable progress.

This summit would have been a triumph if the crucial revision of the Treaties had been crowned with as much success as the areas I have just mentioned. In fact, while we seem to have succeeded in avoiding total paralysis of the future enlarged European Union, it has not been possible to convert the ambitions of the French Presidency into a new draft of the Treaty. Be it the excessively limited number of areas transferred from unanimity to majority voting, or subject to codecision, be it the upward revision of the number of Members of the European Parliament in the Europe of tomorrow, or yet again, be it the uncertainty over the number of Commissioners after the enlargements, the Treaty does not come up to scratch, far from it.

Beyond the technical aspects of that reform, what concerns us most of all is the growing difficulty the Member States of the European Union have in making joint decisions, in accordance with the common interests of their citizens. Let me conclude, as rapporteur for the outermost regions of the Union, by expressing deep regret at the rather disappointing conclusions of the Nice Summit, which do no more than acknowledge the Commission’s work programme. The outermost regions deserve better and Parliament will continue to work flat out – with Commissioner Barnier’s help, I am sure – to give them all the space they are entitled to within the Union.

  Maij-Weggen (PPE-DE). – (NL) Mr President, Nice was no success. Notwithstanding all the self-congratulation by the French government this morning, the IGC simply did not finish on a good note. Admittedly, reinforced cooperation and the European defence force got off the ground, the English having imposed quite a few restrictions on the latter. The most essential issue, i.e. the switch from vetos to majority decisions, was not applied to the very areas where it was most needed. Taxation, social security, justice, asylum issues, agriculture, structural funds; the very areas that ought to have been provided for before enlargement, were left out. The Summit simply failed on that score. National interests took precedence over the interests of Europe as a whole. And what makes it more serious still is that in a number of cases where majority decision making was introduced, no provision was made for Parliament to have authority as colegislator. So the democratic deficit has grown a little larger. What possessed the Summit to have so little feeling for democracy?

Then there is the position taken up by the Netherlands. During the Summit it seemed as if the Netherlands was only out to win a kind of football match against Belgium. The result of this outpouring of energy was 12-13 instead of 10-10 in terms of points in the vote weighting. What is that against 300 votes? Anyway, why was France so dead against counting in population density? Surely it is a very common democratic principle? So the Netherlands got one more vote than Belgium in the Council. But if we look at the number of seats in the European Parliament then the Netherlands drops from 31 to 25 and Belgium from 24 to 22. So the Netherlands paid a price for gaining a toehold in the Council.

At the end of the day, it is clear that the traditional IGC format no longer works. When the time comes to make preparations once again for a summit in 2004, it would be better to use the convention format. Leave it to the 15 governmental representatives, 30 national and 15 MEPs to prepare for the IGC. It worked well for the Charter and it will also work better than a traditional IGC. And it is more democratic to boot.

Mr President, as far as I am concerned, the Nice Summit simply failed to make the grade.

  Suominen (PPE-DE). – (FI) Mr President, according to a press report, the initial comment by the Finnish Prime Minister, Paavo Lipponen, after Nice was: “This agreement must be remade”. We must surely agree with him, although we know that this desire will only be able to be realised after many years have passed, if, as I believe will happen, national parliaments ratify the Treaty of Nice. Hopefully, however, Nice showed Finland and other small countries that emphasising the intergovernmental European nature of the Council’s role will mean a continuous cycle of defeats for small countries in decision making. No one at the meeting spoke for Europe. When the Commission then tried to do so, its President, as we saw, was literally thrown out of the door. I would like to say many thanks anyway for the gesture

It is nonetheless sad for the future of Europe that no European statesmen were in evidence. Almost every country brought its own internal political problems to the meeting. When they got back home, the prime ministers then emphatically pointed out how they had achieved victory with regard to these internal problems. “We were able to keep matters under our own control” or “We were able to block European decisions”, they said in their own countries. The candidate countries were thus presented with a very bad example, which must have astonished the whole region, from Tallinn to Prague and Budapest. It is obviously a positive matter that enlargement can now go ahead. That message must be clearly sent to the candidate countries. After enlargement, meetings like Nice and the IGCs as they are at present will be impossible; integration will either really make headway or simply fall apart. Things cannot stay as they are now.

It is to be hoped that Europe will yield statesmen. The difference between politicians and statesmen is that politicians know well enough what people want today, while statesmen know what they will actually want twenty years from now.

  Ferber (PPE-DE). – (DE) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am not one of those clever members who can already weigh up everything decided in Nice in detail, because I have yet to see the texts. But if we have learned and must learn anything from Nice, then it is that Europe is far too valuable to leave it solely in the hands of the Heads of State and Government. The model of the Intergovernmental Conference has had its day. That is the first and most important lesson to be learned from last week's negotiations.

On the positive side, we have managed to break through the power boundaries. This is an old demand which we Bavarians have made time and again and for which we were ridiculed years ago; now it is the basis for Council resolutions. I see this as a huge success. But when I look at the wrangling which took place in Nice, it would perhaps have been more important to start discussing power boundaries straight away. That might have made it easier to find reasonable compromises here. In theory, the Amsterdam leftovers have been dealt with. In practice, however, compromises have been found on the basis of the lowest common denominator. Europe cannot be operated in the long term by working solely to the lowest common denominator.

I only hope that Parliament will learn the right lessons from all this. This Parliament must become more self-confident, especially when dealing with the Council of Ministers, if we want to prevent bureaucracy and secret diplomacy from taking over Europe permanently.

  Beazley (PPE-DE). – Mr President, it is not easy to criticise the French presidency during this debate as it is not present. I understand that President Chirac, Mr Vedrine and Mr Moscovici have other important meetings to attend. However, I am sure that the President of the European Commission, Mr Prodi, has important meetings to attend as has Commissioner Barnier and yet they have done us the courtesy to wait for the end of this debate.

Mr Moscovici says we should not blame him, we should blame other governments at the Council. It is deplorable that he has not found it possible to find a deputy to wait for the end of our deliberations. We are after all hoping that we shall be joined by applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe who have been used to the arrogance of government and people not being present, to people giving speeches and then disappearing. I deplore the fact that Mr Moscovici has found no deputy.

Has Nice been a success? Mr Moscovici says that we must turn to our own national governments and criticise them. I am happy to do that. Mr Blair returned to Great Britain as a conquering hero because he had not surrendered this, had not surrendered that and had fought for Britain's interests. Well, of course, I support him in that but what has he actually achieved? He tells us that he has ensured that enlargement will take place. I do not know whether the Commission will reply at the end of this debate but I wonder, in the absence of the Council, whether the Commission is equally confident that by 2004 this European Parliament will contain Czech, Hungarian and Polish Members of the European Parliament and Members from the Baltic States.

Mr Moscovici says that of course you must temper your idealism with realism. I just ask him: Did General de Gaulle temper his idealism with realism, or Winston Churchill? "Public opinion will not wear this." "We cannot get this through the House of Commons." "Oh, there is a referendum." Is there? Have we no leadership in the European Union? Where is the Council? Where are the governments?

It is deplorable and the only hopeful sign is that the European Commission has clearly recovered its sense of self-confidence. This European Parliament will join with the European Commission in insisting that our demands are met.

  Bodrato (PPE-DE). – (IT) Mr President, the Nice Summit has shown that Intergovernmental Conferences have reached the end of their useful life. We are on the eve of eastward enlargement, a turning point which is throwing the strategy of doing things step by step into crisis. If a response is not found to the democratic deficit of the European institutions, the Union will not be able to count on the support of the peoples.

The list of problems tackled in Nice is long but, as President Prodi made quite clear, there was insufficient focus on the institutional reforms and the role of Parliament. It may be that we went to Nice with too many ambitions. Parliament's ambition does not, however, mean that it lacks a sense of responsibility. If we gave in to the realists, we would sweep the Charter of Fundamental Rights under the carpet and be content with a free trade area governed by the large corporations and national interests. Something is wrong. The young federalists who called upon the heads of government to be more courageous, to have the courage of the fathers of the European Community, have understood this. We need to set in motion a large-scale debate on the future of Europe: this must be the post-Nice process if we want to revitalise Europeanism in a profoundly different environment.

  Prodi, President of the Commission. – (IT) Mr President, I will be very brief because the purpose of my speech is to thank you, to thank you not only for your kindness to us but also for what you have said. It is not courtesy which has prompted us to stay until the end of the debate, Mr Beazley: Commissioner Barnier and myself have stayed to hear your opinions, your convictions and your feelings, for it is my opinion that, if we are to build Europe, Parliament and the Commission must do so together.

We have been quite frank with each other in today's debate about those parts of the Treaty of Nice which give us cause for satisfaction and even more open about those with which we are not content. Our reasons are different in some cases but we share the same feelings and concerns.

We have made no bones about the need to continue with the same force and the same determination as before Nice, to achieve our objectives along the road to enlargement, which will be our greatest historical moment and which it is the responsibility of Parliament and the Commission to bring about in the coming years.

We have also been completely clear, ladies and gentlemen, about the need for Parliament and the Commission to work together to build the new Europe, for this arduous task is our responsibility, but ours is also this great mission and this great potential.

  President. – Thank you very much, Mr President of the Commission.

I have received six motions for resolutions from the Members, tabled in accordance with Paragraph 2 of Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure.⁽¹⁾

The debate is closed.

The vote will take place on Thursday at 10.00 a.m.