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 Index 
 Vollständiger Text 
Verbatim report of proceedings
Wednesday, 7 February 2018 - Strasbourg Revised edition

Composition of the European Parliament (debate)
MPphoto
 

  Guy Verhofstadt, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, first of all I want to thank the rapporteurs for their work, for their wisdom and for their patience in this long discussion. You may remember the former president of the European People’s Party who was my predecessor as Prime Minister of Belgium and who was, I can say quite easily, a very dedicated European, Wilfried Martens.

Wilfried Martens was a true believer in and defender of transnational lists and he understood what was at stake: he understood that without a strong link between the citizens and Europe, eurosceptics and populists would in the end always win the game. And he understood that transnational lists will not alienate the citizen: quite the contrary. Why? Because, in the proposal that you have before you, people will have two votes. One vote is for a national candidate, for a national list, to keep the link between the citizen and his or her MEP; and a second vote is for transnational candidates, to strengthen the link between the citizen and the European Union.

In my view, this is the only way to create what I call a European demos – which cannot arrive by accident, or spontaneously of itself – and I think it is also needed to make the Spitzenkandidaten process really democratic. Today the Spitzenkandidaten process is still undemocratic and non-transparent, a backroom deal within political parties or between political parties. What Spitzenkandidaten alone will not deliver, and what transnational lists will deliver because they complement the Spitzenkandidaten process, it is that it becomes a democratic process. It will be the people, the citizens, who will decide on the Spitzenkandidaten and the President of the Commission.

I have not heard any serious arguments against it. People say federal states don’t have it: wrong! Federal states want it. My country, Belgium, is a federal state and many want a federal constituency. It is separatists who make war against it. A second example is the United States of America: a federal state. It’s because there is no single constituency that it is Mr Trump who is President and not Hilary Clinton, who received three million votes more than Donald Trump.

Secondly, another argument I hear is that transnational lists are good for populists. I have to tell you that is also wrong. You could argue that democracy is only good for populists, so let’s abolish democracy and let’s abolish elections. I can tell you one thing: that’s nonsense. You have to beat the populists, not to fear them, and to do that you need transnational lists.

The third argument, that transnational lists are only good for big Member States, is also wrong. No political party can afford to participate in elections without putting all the countries on the transnational list. What counts is not size, Mr Rangel, what counts is the vision, the passion, the commitment of all of us. That is what counts.

And let us be honest about big Member States. Our colleagues from Spain, Poland, France, Italy and Germany today need at least double the number of votes received by us representatives of small and medium-sized Member States, but I nevertheless tabled, together with Pascal, an amendment to ensure that small and medium-sized Member States will be represented on the list.

I am concluding. I know you’re a very tough President, Mr Wieland.

Let’s not waste this historic opportunity. Brexit will never come back. Never again will we see half of the Member States in favour of this European constituency. And finally, Mr President, Altiero Spinelli, the father of this European Parliament, would turn in his grave if we missed this unique opportunity.

(Applause)

 
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