mr president the experience of many ages teaches us that paper rights on their own are no adequate guarantors of civic freedoms
the rights that are spelt out in the european union's charter of fundamental rights and freedoms are not so very different from those adumbrated in the constitutions of say east germany or the ussr but as the citizens of those unhappy polities discovered paper rights in themselves are worthless in the absence of adequate mechanisms of parliamentary government
there is no crisis of human rights in the european union but there is a crisis of democratic legitimacy
allow me to suggest that one way to ameliorate that crisis would be to keep faith with our voters and put the treaty of lisbon as we promised to a series of referendums
