Duff calls for 'Campaigning Parliament'

1.08.34pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 21st Jul 2004

Speaking on behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Andrew Duff MEP, called for the European Parliament to shoulder responsibility for the new Constitution.

He congratulated the outgoing Irish presidency of the Council on having achieved agreement on the constitution at the Intergovernmental Conference. He said that the constitutional process had 'changed the political discourse in Europe. We have established the constitutional framework for a Europe than can stand on its own feet in world affairs and can deliver better common policy to address our shared problems.'

Duff, who led the Liberals in the Convention that drafted the Constitution, said that member states were right to have accepted the same concept of constitutional fidelity that had informed the proceedings of the Convention.

He added: 'Although there were certainly remnants of old-style quarrels about the pecking order between states, the IGC managed to rise above them and leave us with a fairly clear picture of what the European Union will be like for the foreseeable future. There is a sense of constitutional settlement and democratic legitimation over this package deal that previous IGCs have not achieved. The EU comes out stronger.'

Duff argued that the new European Parliament must also explain and justify what has happened to Europe's fairly sceptical electorate. 'We must be a campaigning Parliament for the Constitution. ... The Parliament cannot absolve itself of responsibility for what has happened at the IGC. If any referendum is lost anywhere in Europe - and not least in the UK - it will be partly our fault as MEPs and that of the political parties that sent us here. It will also be our problem to resolve.'

ENDS/...