[FR] Our ideal and our priority: Reuniting Europe

I often recall French Prime Minister Raymond Barre’s statement that ‘Europe only does one thing well at a time.’ Today, given the multitude of tasks undertaken by the Union, we need to introduce reflection and seek an essential angle. Presenting the work of the Convention would have been somewhat futile because I do not believe that institutional reflection alone, however important it may be, can provide the key to making Europe more efficient, more transparent and more comprehensible.

And then there are all the projects that are under way… Yes, we must make a success of Economic and Monetary Union because, despite the success of the introduction of the euro, there is still much to be done to ensure that Economic and Monetary Union stands on its own two feet – the economy and the currency – and can therefore serve the common good and not be an end in itself.
There is the Lisbon process – an ambitious process – which the Heads of State and Government meeting in the European Council decided to pursue in order, as they said, to make the European economy the most powerful, the most competitive and the most socially advanced. There is cooperation on security – a point I would like to emphasise – and progress is being made in areas that are extraordinarily difficult given the diversity of legislation on judicial matters and internal security, and given the tensions that exist in each country between interior ministers and justice ministers, and even between certain conceptions of what constitutes crime.

There is also the establishment of the Rapid Reaction Force, even if at the moment it is very complicated and very difficult, because the ambitions of the different countries and the tasks they have set themselves are not the same. And, overall, Europe is progressing, quietly but surely.
That is why it seemed to me that if we had to find a theme – one that is not arbitrary – that might sum up all the questions about the future of Europe, it would be the reunification of Europe. I really like that phrase, the reunification of Europe. Because, in my view, that is our ideal and our priority.