Abitbol (EDD). – (FR) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the voters in twenty-five countries, some 300 million in number, will go to the polls, between 10 and 13 June depending on the country, without knowing the answers to the two key questions facing us: ‘What kind of Constitution is Europe to have?’ and ‘What are Europe’s borders to be?’

What characterises the European Union, to my mind, is its contempt for the sovereign voice of nations and citizens: a federal Constitution, which is hidden, only to be unveiled three days later; three days after the elections! Are you trying to have us believe, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that, after almost two years of the Convention, and the Intergovernmental Conference, you were not ready to present this Constitution to the citizens before they voted? In all honesty, as you said just now, we can see right through this ...

As for Turkey’s accession, which would give the European Union – let us be clear about this – a border with Iraq, the decision, which is already known, will also be taken, in a few months’ time behind the citizens’ backs.

Mr President, many people had high hopes for your Presidency, the Irish Presidency. In truth, you will have put another brick in an ever-thicker wall, which is no longer dividing Europe in two, but is separating the Europe above – that of the institutions – from the Europe below, that is to say, the people. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to make the same suggestion to you as I did last time – I think it was the Prime Minister who was there: why not bring the June Summit forward by a week, just one week? That way, you will show the public that the European Union is not afraid of its own shadow.