In the report by our colleagues Barón Crespo and Brok, you can read in the preamble, on the subject of the French and Dutch NO votes on the draft constitutional treaty, that "many of the misgivings expressed related to the context, rather than the content; and (...) issues of major public concern (... ) have since been resolved." This is what is called giving oneself an easy conscience!

                       

The conclusion of this kind of analysis is obvious. The report states in the first paragraph that it "reaffirms its endorsement of the content of the Constitutional Treaty," Of course it also says it intends taking into account  "the difficulties which have arisen in certain member states" but paragraph 6 specifies in a delectable way the scope of the concessions to which it could consent, by reaffirming its "commitment to achieving a settlement of the ongoing constitutional process of the European Union that is based on the content of the Constitutional Treaty, possibly under a different presentation"! The similarity is striking between this approach and the one suggested in one of the "twelve questions" sent last month by Mrs Angela Merkel to the Heads of State and Government: "what do you think of the proposal (...) to change the terminology without however modifying the substance (...)?

These three extracts from the Barón Crespo-Brok report summarise perfectly my group's disagreement with the proposed text. We are doing Europe no favours if we hide behind the growing problems raised among our citizens in the fundamental part on the "acquis communautaire", in other words a certain number of implications of what our treaties call "the open market economy in which competition is free".

Three examples:

           

- On 22 May last, at the Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation, the President of the ECB, Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, saw this for himself when the congress unanimously disagreed with his theory of "wage restraint" in the name of "price competitiveness" in an open economy.

           

- A couple of days earlier, Commissioner Mc Creevy had a similar experience in Council, where increasing numbers of government representatives demanded the postponement of the liberalisation of postal services in the wake of the outcry that this draft directive is stirring among entire populations.

- And then, a couple of days ago, industrial associations which are particularly exposed to world competition, were themselves accusing Commissioner Mandelson of overdoing it on the free trade front, which would have "unacceptable consequences".  

It was this flood of protest that the German economics and finance minister M. Steinbrück must have been thinking about when he recently evoked the risk of a "crisis of legitimacy for the European economic and social model".

           

That is why my group is resolutely calling first and foremost for a very open public debate on what should change in the orientations and structures of the Union and subsequently for ratification by referendum of the future European treaty.