Constitution not yet approved!
15 December 2004
Today, Jim Allister made the following speech in the European Parliament
Allister (NI). – Mr President, I wish to focus this debate on the ongoing work of the Council to prepare and initiate the external relations service in advance of ratification and adoption of the Constitution, for it is the Constitution which validates that service. I have in my possession a letter from Mrs Wallström – the Vice-President of the Commission, who is present this morning – confirming that the outcome of the debate on the Constitution should neither be presumed nor pre-empted in any fashion. Yet that is precisely what is being done in this ongoing work on the new external relations service. That is wrong. As an individual Member of this House I protest against it. Either we acknowledge and accept the right of the nation-states to determine the fate of the Constitution, its new institutions and its working apparatuses such as the foreign service, or we do not.
Both the Council and the Commission arrogantly continue to work as if the Constitution was already approved. It is a grave insult to and assault on the rights of nations and indeed the rights of people.
Click to view this and other speeches made by Jim Allister in the European Parliament
