Debates

Thursday, 19 January 2006 - Strasbourg

8.9. The period of reflection: structure, subjects and context for an assessment of the debate on the EU (vote)

– Before the vote:

  Patrick Louis (IND/DEM ). – (FR) Mr President, I refer to Rule 138 concerning translations. Amendment 1 tabled by the Independence and Democracy Group proposes an alternative draft resolution that heeds and respects our nations’ rejection of any super state and therefore of any constitution. The translation of this amendment, the English version in particular, distorts the sense of the original in several places. For example, where we refer to ‘the pursuit of European construction’, a politically neutral expression, the translation refers to ‘European integration’, an expression for the supranational process that we reject. It is no doubt a Pavlovian reflex that has contaminated many offices in this building, still not accepting that a different Europe is possible. I would therefore like to point out that only the original French version is authentic.

  Johannes Voggenhuber (Verts/ALE), rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, unless I have misunderstood you, you called the honourable Member who has just spoken under my name. I would not want the impression to be given that the rapporteurs are in agreement with his interpretation. This desperate attempt to use translations as a means of altering substance must not succeed. The rapporteurs will have nothing to do with it.

– After the vote:

  Jo Leinen (PSE). – (DE) Mr President, I wish, as chairman of the committee, to thank the rapporteurs for working through one of the most important issues to concern us in 2006 at a time when much is in flux, and, in my capacity as a German MEP, to give the services a series of corrections. The German translation is sometimes misleading and sometimes wrong, with – to give just one example – the term ‘European papers’ translated as ‘Euro papers’. It is not paper that we want to produce, but political substance. I shall let you have a series of corrections.