Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado (PPE-DE), rapporteur. – (ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report Mr Tsatsos and myself have produced is based on very clear political criteria. Firstly, Parliament must support its delegation in the Convention, which has achieved a good text, an intelligent text, although naturally it is not a perfect text, because no legal text is perfect.

We do not therefore believe that we need to make proposals to modify this text; we understand that many Members would have liked to have called for improvements on various points, but our approach has been that we should not call for any, but that we should ask the Heads of State or Government not to substantially undo or alter the broad consensus achieved in the Convention.

We are not dealing with mere preparatory work, but with an expression of solutions supported by national parliaments and the European Parliament – which represents the citizens of Europe – and by representatives of the governments and the Member States. I repeat: we are dealing with a political consensus which must not be undervalued or sidelined.

It is true that, on certain points, ladies and gentlemen, some governments and the Commission have expressed reservations. It would be naïve to imagine that these extremely important political problems are not going to be dealt with by the Intergovernmental Conference, or that that Conference will simply rubberstamp what the Convention has done. Those people who maintain this position are naturally expressing an initial negotiating position because, otherwise, we would have to assume they have their heads in the clouds.

I am convinced, ladies and gentlemen – and I am obviously speaking on a personal basis and not as rapporteur – that the system according to which only half of the Commissioners would vote would be a crass error. That solution would weaken the Commission at a time when it most needs to be strengthened. This is an error which must be corrected.

I would also say equally clearly that it will not be possible to alter the balance of power established in Nice, so that just one or two States pay the price for a new decision-making method. In the Union, consensus can be changed, of course, but on one condition: that the interests of everybody are brought together. Otherwise, new consensus cannot be achieved. A consensus is replaced by another consensus, not by impositions.

Our report intends to stress that dealing with and resolving these specific issues will be legitimate provided that we thereby improve the democratic consensus achieved so far. This, however, must not be a reason for reopening the constitutional negotiations, as if we were weaving Penelope’s shroud. I would say to the Heads of State or Government that that would be a great error.

That is the main political message of our report, but we had to go further than that, of course. It was necessary to evaluate the ins and outs of the draft Constitution so that the citizens can express their opinion on it when the time comes and so that it may be clear that the European Parliament accepts and supports this draft as a compromise, a realistic negotiated position between the ideal solutions it has been advocating and the possibilities for putting them into practice at this time. We are not abandoning those goals. We are making it clear that the draft represents a step forward, an important step, but we are not giving up the idea of making further progress when the time is right.

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would not like to end this brief speech without thanking my co-rapporteur, Professor Tsatsos, for his exemplary will to achieve consensus and the high intellectual quality of his contribution to achieving it. I would also like to thank all our fellow Members from the different groups for their extremely valuable contributions and their sense of responsibility.

There is no question that we have been able to work with such a high degree of consensus because Parliament's representation in the Convention – in agreement with the national parliaments – did such a significant job achieving the consensus on the basis of which we have been able to continue to build.

I have mentioned this Parliament’s sense of responsibility. Parliament usually demonstrates this sense of responsibility when it comes to taking political decisions of truly great importance. Since it was elected by universal suffrage, that sense of responsibility has turned it into the Union's driving force. I have seen this during successive Intergovernmental Conferences, some of which I have participated in very directly.

It is in this spirit of integration, construction and genuine Europeanism, that I am hopeful that the House will vote in favour of our report.

(Applause)