Claude Moraes, on behalf of the PSE Group. – Mr President, our country is out of the World Cup, so we can stay here for as long as we wish!

I congratulate the Commissioner for taking the time to attempt to act on the Commission communication of September 2005 and to give us real policies with which we can progress.

Of course the Council has to be a willing partner too and we are hoping that the Finnish Presidency might repeat the discussions at the Tampere Council, which were extremely progressive. I hope we see evidence of that.

The Lambrinidis report is a progressive and positive addition to the new debate on integration in this House. It is positive for a series of reasons. The rapporteur does not just look at all the fashionable ideas on integration in the different parties; he tries to look at what works. This is too serious a subject now for us not to look at the models that actually work. He says we should share best practice, which we are not currently doing. He talks about implementation of the directives that will make integration work, such as the race equality directives. He talks about money, about the very little we spend on integration, given the disproportionate results, the disproportionate economic and social benefits we would get from spending on the kinds of projects the Commissioner talked about, whether language or other integration projects.

All these things are important, but ultimately we should stop thinking that integration is not for the European Union. Integration is for the European Union; not just the sharing of best practice, looking at the best models of integration, but the political will of this House to provide local support for those people who believe that integration will benefit society, benefit the economy and ultimately create harmony in the EU.

Mr Lambrinidis has produced a report that takes us one step forward. Let us hope that further initiatives come from this House, that the Commission remains strong and that the Council will join us in this struggle.