European Parliament
Helmer (PPE-DE ).
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Spain and Poland on their courageous and principled stand at the recent IGC, which resulted in the failure of the wretched draft Constitution.
(Mixed reactions)
However, I regret that it failed over voting weights, which is essentially a technical issue, when it would have been better had it failed by rejecting in principle this massive step in European integration for which there is no public demand.
There is a disturbing parallel emerging between the political
élites
of the EU on the one hand and the former USSR on the other. Both were obsessed with their own narrow vision of the unification of their continents. Both showed an arrogant disregard for the ambitions and aspirations of ordinary people and eventually we shall be able to say that both failed.

