Paris, 02/07/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 2 July in Paris, the EPP-ED Group launched its study days, revealing part of its strategy for winning the next European elections in June 2009. The largest political force of the EP (288 MEPs from 27 EU countries) stresses the need for a response to the major challenges such as climate and energy, migration, the security of persons, and the new food situation. French Ministers Hervé Morin (defence) and Michèle Alliot-Marie (interior) had been invited to this first day's work of the EPP. Other commitments, however, prevented the minister of the interior from attending.
Patrick Devedjian, Secretary General of the UMP, stressed that the European Parliament is “the guardian of Europe's holy fire”. MEPs have shown that they were not just part of the machinery but “characters taking part in a real adventure”. He called for “a European way of thinking” for preparing the elections of 2009 at the EP. The UMP, as a member of the EPP-ED political bureau (with its 18 MEPs in the EPP-ED Group), calls for better coordination of political action by the two entities, the EPP party and the EPP-ED Group. Mr Devedjian also has in mind a union of the different national parties represented within the EPP. “We shall develop our programme together for the next European elections. I am convinced that the broader the consultation is, the stronger ideas will be”. He therefore recommends that, before being presented to voters, a European programme should be developed at European level and represented by a European party. “Our campaign will have succeeded if our voters have the feeling that they are voting not for the UMP, a national party, but for the EPP, a visible European party, which is dynamic and powerful”, the secretary general of the UMP said by way of conclusion.
“When our parties unite, we win the elections. When they are not united, our voters stay at home”, Joseph Daul, President of the EPP-ED Group, put in. “Our public sends us signs of concern, of anger, and of incomprehension regarding the problems that arise”, Mr Daul noted. In his opinion, “our political family, our governments, our parliamentary groups” respond to these concerns with a “language of conviction and reason”, which is not always understood. According to Mr Daul, it is “easier, as our political adversaries do all too often, to launch slogans rather than conduct in-depth reforms as we do (…) to strengthen social cohesion”. Mr Daul went on to add: “We have 21 right-wing governments in Europe”.
Alain Lamassoure, the national UMP secretary responsible for European affairs, explained what the UMP and the EPP were working on together to prepare for the elections of 2009: - in the hypothesis that the Lisbon Treaty will apply as soon as possible (ideally by June 2009, or immediately after), “we shall be able to tell our voters to vote for the EPP, and, if the EPP has a majority at the European Parliament, that is what the EPP will do”; - “we have set ourselves the challenge of being able to conduct a campaign on the same legislative programme in all 27 countries, with the same priorities”; - the EPP has set itself the objective of being able to say (during a congress to be held in April 2009) that “if we hold a majority at the EP, our candidate for presiding the European Commission will be Mr or Mrs …”. This person will be elected by the EPP according to democratic means, “and that is what changes everything”; - “we shall call on” this candidate to the post of Commission president to campaign in all 27 countries; - the other political forces (Socialists, Liberals, Greens, etc) will be compelled to do the same (if they wish to remain credible) and national television will have to organise debates between the candidates of the various parties and, for the very first time, there will be a European-level political debate. The EPP is far in advance of the other political parties of Europe “so let's make the most of it”, Mr Lamassoure concluded.
Margie Sudre, who heads the French delegation of the EPP-ED Group at the EP, hoped the ratification process for the Lisbon Treaty would continue in member states that have not stated their position, in order to “establish the balance of power within the EU on this text”. In parallel, the French EU Council Presidency will have the task of negotiating with Ireland on “acceptable ways to achieve a happy ending, after over 15 years of effort to reform the way the enlarged Europe operates”. (L.C./transl.jl)