'A Liberal view of Europe's model' - Graham Watson speech to ELDR Party Congress, Bratislava, 23rd September 2005

Speech delivered on Fri 23rd Sep 2005

Few would deny that the EU is in the doldrums. Its Constitution saw a serious setback. Its budget is in stalemate. Its economy in stagnation, 20 millions out of work. Some social model! These problems are related. They are part of a general malaise.

Europe is divided. Take Germany: split over economic reform.

Or Britain: stretched on the rack between American allies and continental counterparts.

Holland: feeling its way from tolerance of diversity to inclusion.

Political families are divided. Look at the parties of the right.

Pulled between the grip of the church and the aspirations of the modern voter. They want the nation state to become the network state.

It doesn't work. As we saw at the UN last week.

And the left? The problem is clear. It's not just that they have no ideological compass. They believe experienced travellers need no compass. They pore over opinion polls. Filter the focus groups.

Repeat to the voters what the voters say they believe.

That's not leadership: it's followership. Not thinking ahead, but crisis management. And friends, this gives us what I would call

a market opportunity for liberal democrats. Our message to moderates

on the right on the left must be this:

"Come with us. Construct a coalition of the coherent".

In every local community in Europe, where liberal ideas are gaining ground. In national parliaments, with more liberal members than in decades. In the ELDR, more professional than ever before under the successful stewardship of Werner Hoyer. In the European parliament,

Where next week our numbers rise to 105 with new colleagues from Bulgaria and Romania. In the council of Europe, the committee of the regions, the parliamentary assemblies of NATO and beyond.

Our new Alliance of Liberals and Democrats working with European Democratic party friends means we pack more punch.

Liberal Democrats make the difference. Our ALDE is going well.

Some believed a broader church would be divided.

A group of 105 MEPs less coherent than 52. We've studied the statistics. After a year of votes in parliament. We are more united than in the last mandate. But that's not the only reason we are feared.

Liberalism's strength is not only in our political presence. It's in the impact of our ideas.

Friends, if we can re-unite. The three main currents of our creed. The classical liberalism of human dignity and human rights; The economic liberalism of unfettered markets; The social liberalism of Cobden and Grundtvig and Karl Hermann Flach, of Einaudi and Galbraith and Sen;

This century will be ours. A liberal century.

I spent a week in France, campaigning in their referendum. It's hard to call yourself a liberal when prejudice fills the air. Our thinking is often most rejected when it is most needed. But the liberalism loathed in France is not our liberalism. No savage, slash-and-burn free marketeers, we. Using the power of markets, yes. But valuing the civic freedom to control the social consequences of private choices.

We recognise that markets sometimes fail, that regulation has a role.

Take the European Commission's proposals on chemicals. A major piece of current work. We are not sure what chemicals do. But we know of falling fertility rates in women and sinking sperm counts in men. Threatening the ability of our species to reproduce. That's why we are rooting for a REACH directive to Register, Evaluate and Authorise every Chemical in use. And Lena Ek is leading the debate. Liberal ideas to the fore. For safer beaches. Action on CFCs. Tobacco health warnings. That's liberal leadership too. But Liberal Democrats know the EU needs reform. Barroso's bonfire of inane ideas is overdue. As is the European Court's commitment to enforce the laws. Europe's farm policy is a disgrace. Feeding the greedy, not the needy. But our MEPs don't sit idle. This year's single farm payment is a major reform, with more to come. We've reformed our own pay and expenses. And we've voted out daft ideas like software patents and statutory sun cream for busty barmaids. Just as in national Parliaments, we are the party of reform. But just as we need our national parliaments, we also need Brussels. Because today's big challenges are supranational.

Take world growth population. If you are poor, you need kids to provide for your old age. And with five billion poor, population is rising dangerously. So we need to pull out people out of poverty. Pronto.

Liberal Democrats know that no government can do that. Only markets can. Others disagree. The Left wing wants to close our markets. The Rights says close our Borders. Both say send home the migrants whose remittances relatives rely on. And whose labour we rely on to pick our crops, drive our trucks, staff our care homes. Those policies may appease the popular press but they don't appeal to us because they don't stack up with developing countries. Remember this. The hungry vote with their feet. So either we accept their produce or their migrants. Education, especially for women. Micro-credit for business. Investment in good governance. Those are all ways government can help. But markets, markets, markets.

These are the way forward. And these must be Europe's priorities.

The EU distils our development efforts, but what of other global challenges? Like climate change. If America had heeded the warnings a quarter century ago, we might have prevented it. If Bush acts now, we might yet control it. After Katrina, how much more evidence does he need? That's why Europe is committed to Kyoto. And my MEPs to alternatives to oil. With high prices, it makes economic sense. We could even move to a hydrogen economy. By pooling our research, bringing together our best brains, Europe can make that leap. But not with a budget at 1 %. Think of things we can do with pooled R & D money. Things no country could do alone. Fund research into bio-mimicry. That's inventing processes which mimic life. The Americans have found a butterfly in the desert which strains water from the air through its wings. They have copied its technique for the walls of tents. Providing water for refugees. We use enormous energy to heat kilns to fire porcelain, but the abalone grows a shell both stronger and finer. And it's made from? Pure sea water.

Could we do that? We think we could. But not if Europe cuts its research budget. The Lisbon agenda is written in liberal language.

Free up our markets. Unlock the potential of our people. Do it together within the single market. Time and again, co-operation brings benefits. Joint investment in Airbus - outselling Boeing. Supranational co-operation for an International Criminal Court. A single voice in trade: from Doha to Hong Kong. Working with India and China for innovation and cheaper consumer goods. We have concentrated on a Constitution. But the people want results. If our Union delivers these benefits, people will vote for it. Telecommunications and travel have opened up our world. But not only to the curious and the well-meaning.

Also to criminals dealing in drugs and guns and sex slaves. Terrorists fostering failing states as training grounds. The once mighty nation state seems powerless to protect. Democracies must pool their power to target terror. But wars are won by cunning, not by force. And peace by understanding, not by constraint. The roots of disaffection run deep. In the holy Wars of our history, beyond the settlements of the West Bank, in daily discrimination on the job market, and prejudice in public. The language of the 'war on terror' is wrong. New controls create a climate of fear. In Italy, new stop and search powers. In Germany, police surveillance. In France, more CCTV. In the UK, detention without trial. Breaking the Convention on Human Rights. The nub of this problem is this:

Government has a dual duty. It must assure our security. But it must also guard our freedom. We can be both tough on terrorism and true to the treaties we have signed. Get Europe's intelligence services working together. Give our magistrates and police cross-border capability. Give them the powers they need if they are measured and proportionate. Our MEPs will work for that. But tackle too the hurts and humiliations. Promote a policy driven by values. That's the aim of Liberal Democrat MEPs.

For global challenges, we need global responses. Global institutions. Global reach. Liberalism has no problem with that. Here in Europe, we promote it. And the great tribes of our continent live at peace. For us, all people are equal. Rights are indivisible. Values universal.

Freedom for all. We work for a time when hope and history will rhyme.

Our vision was perhaps best described by Victor Hugo.

We see a day, when the only battlefields, will be those of markets open for business and human spirit open for ideas.

That day is approaching as humankind matures.

Liberals are leading the way.