Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, chair of the Liberal and Democratic Reformist Group (LDR) of the European Parliament, addresses Jacques DELORS, President of the European Commission, during an EP plenary session, with the group's assessment of the Commission's plans for the year 1990. The LDR demands more ambitious policy to advance European integration.

Future of Europe / European integration (T2)

statement

Strasbourg

plenary session

GISCARD d'ESTAING, Valéry (EPP, FR)

Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING intervention in plenary session debate - European Commission's programme for 1990

SOUNDBITE (Original), Val&eacute;ry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, Thank you, President. President of the Commission. In presenting to us the Commission's programme of work from 1990. Can I say about the commission's working document for 1990 appears to our group to be lacking a little bit and so far not quite enough brimstone in there. In terms of pushing towards the European Union, assisting the countries in eastern Europe.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, That it is a little bit short on detail and ultimately the prospects for the future. Obviously, presidents, it's not possible to always reach for and find the quill of Chateaubriand, when you are framing a document of this kind. However, I think that the commission needs to set a sight, within a broader system for our community.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, This is why I come away from hearing your introduction with some disappointment. There was a passage on the abolition of fiscal frontiers and it said that the elimination of tax frontiers might carry with it a pitfall, which was that they might be put back in place by the back door. But of course, we are told it's going to be 1996 when there is full harmonisation of indirect taxation.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, Well, on that particular point, our group takes a more categoric or emphatic point of view in common with many other members of parliament and groups. We want to see community provisions which will render illegal any fiscal inspections at the frontiers by January 1, 1993. I think that the credibility of the community is at stake.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, Imagine the disappointment and the scepticism, the wrath, of citizens if come 1993, they still find themselves being fiscally examined at the frontiers. Disappointment also on the part in connexion with the economic and monetary union. The 1990 programme is very limited in its statements. They're timid, half hearted in its proposals for the European Currency Unit.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, We are now halfway through stage one and we would have expected a rather more energetic approach for 1990. Cooperation with countries in Central and Eastern Europe. There too in the written text, great deal of timidity. It proposes the use of 300 million ECUs, which is the figure in the budget, and prospects for negotiating trade agreements with countries in the East. I'm afraid that's far short of the response in keeping with the historic challenge which recent developments pose.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, Complete silence on the need to advance our institutions in the written paper. No comment is made on the subject. During your speech on the programme, Mr. president, you happened to fill in the blank. But I must say that it sounds like you are looking to Parliament looking for support. This parliament has been unstinting in its support to the Commission for the, for example, the abolition of frontiers.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, Institutional progress should, I think, be at the centre of the preoccupations of this Parliament. To use your formula: urgency means we must find more courage. In your speech you talked of two inter-governmental conferences. You said that these would proceed in parallel. Now, if it's going to be in a line or parallel, I think we ought to argue about the precise method.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, The basic concerns have to be institutions and the currency. They are separate, but they are, of course, not unrelated. You mentioned the subjects to be discussed on the Intergovernmental Conference. You enumerated a lengthy list of topics and they are, of course, very technical in nature.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, It is perfectly self-evident that the other area which you define in rather imprecise terms. We think we must go much further than that and really take both feet into the process of working out an institutional document which would serve a genuinely federal union. You referred to the reprise of work undertaken by the late Altiero Spinelli.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, These, of course, are constitutional questions. To find a reply, it's not sufficient simply to call for an intergorvernmental conference. We need proposals. This Parliament has provided such proposals. You require cooperation. In fact, what you need is an inter-institutional conference.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Valéry GISCARD D'ESTAING, LDR Group Leader, It's great to honour a privilege to be able to address at the house with the presence of Mr. Dubcek. This is, of course, emblematic. The countries in Central and Eastern Europe have overthrown their regimes and their rulers. And there is a need for the political classes to keep up with the peoples of their countries. We in the parliaments do want to to do that. We want to advance. Thank you very much.