Strasbourg, 14/01/2005 (Agence Europe) - The ALDE group at the European Parliament has published a table illustrating that its voting on the Corbett/Mendez de Vigo report on the European Constitution on Wednesday was the most compact. Whereas the Ind/Dem and GUE/NGL groups voted unanimously or almost unanimously (respectively) against (Thursday's EUROPE, p.4), the "yes" percentages in the five groups largely in favour of the Constitution were, according to the group chaired by Graham Watson: ALDE: 97.56%; -PES: 93.04%; -Greens: 80.48%; -EPP-ED 79.67%; -UEN: 69.23%. ALDE is "the most European group of the Parliament", said Graham Watson, stating in a press release that maybe the time has come for the EPP-ED group to decide on its common vision of Europe, "and to put an end to the political charade mixing federalists with Eurosceptics sharing the same political platform when they are as alike as chalk and cheese". The British Liberal Democrat also spoke out against the "pantomime" organised by the Eurosceptics after the vote on the Constitution, with politicians behaving like "wild bears chanting nationalist hymns".
The President of the EPP-ED group, Hans-Gert Pöttering, published a press release in which he went no further than to welcome the vast majority with which the Parliament had approved the Constitution. For the same group, Alain Lamassoure (UMP) added his congratulations, noting "the enormous consensus which exists on this text across the board of the European political spectrum, with the exception of the extremists and the British Conservatives". "We cannot, by definition, build a family alone, and here we have a family contract which benefits from the broadest possible support", he said in a press release.
The full text of the Parliament's resolution will feature in the edition of our EUROPE-Documents series, annexed to this bulletin.