Jacques Toubon (PPE-DE). – (FR) Mr President, I would like to add my support to the line taken by Mr Schwab a few moments ago. I would say that adopting this directive today is a major decision and we owe it to the very remarkable efforts of our rapporteur, Mr Lambsdorff, our shadow rapporteur, Charlotte Cederschiöld, whom I thank and naturally, the French Presidency who, at the end of last year, made great efforts to achieve a compromise.

In fact, what we are doing today is to finish a cycle which has been remarkably fast, that is to say a few months, which includes both the directive on the internal market in defence products, adopted in December, the Code of Conduct for exports, which became law at the same time and, finally, this directive reconciling Article 296 of the Treaty with the common rules on public contracts. In fact, this whole set, so to speak, commits us to what I will call ‘communitisation’ of the defence economy. This might, of course, appear to be inimical to the desire for sovereignty or even to the very characteristics of defence policies. In fact, this translates a desire for integration of state sovereignties.

The same thing will be noted in the field of justice. Throughout the French Presidency and since the Portuguese and Slovenian Presidencies, enormous progress has been made in yet another field in which national sovereignties wished to block any agreement or cooperation.

In fact, ladies and gentlemen, by adopting such a text, I believe we are helping to bring an end to the ideological debate on the nature and form of the European project. It is an area and a power, and it will be increasingly recognised in the fields of defence and foreign policy.