ALDE Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Euro : Luxembourg Presidency: "A small member state but a great European State"

Commenting on the results of the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU Council, Guy Verhofstadt, president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group (ALDE), said today:

'In a particularly difficult context, marked by the refugee crisis and the outbreak of a war on terrorism on European soil, the Liberal prime minister Xavier Bettel and his government took steps to maintain the principles and values of the Union, whether to maintain free movement despite the ambitions of certain Member States to close borders or to reach a compromise maintaining the rights of our citizens during the difficult negotiations on PNR and data protection. As a negotiator on behalf of the European Parliament on the Inter-institutional Agreement on better lawmaking, I can also confirm the substantial support provided by the Luxembourg Presidency to parliamentary prerogatives, which is usually insufficient from the Council. Luxembourg has shown once again that it is a great European country! '

Intervening in the plenary session of the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, during the debate on the review of the Luxembourg Presidency, Charles Goerens (Democratic Party, Luxembourg), declared:

'At the end of your Presidency, we saw that the already existing crises in July have now become existential for the European Union. Unfortunately they remain so, because our Member States are not willing to provide the European Union with the competences and the means to address them. It is particularly reassuring to see how your Presidency has succeeded in meeting the important challenges. These include, for example, the budget 2016 adopted unanimously in record time. And let's not forget the progress made in the area of justice and home affairs.'

'Your great merit has been to demonstrate that we can move forward, even if the outcome is not a foregone conclusion. It is true that, despite the progress mentioned, some of our Member States have their feet on the brakes when it comes to solidarity to deal with major crises such as the refugee crisis. We are ashamed that many Member States question important achievements such as Schengen. The real crisis at the beginning of 2016 is a crisis of solidarity. '

'We are counting on you, your talent, the experience of the Member State you represent, to move Europe forward, to give it a more federalist footprint. Our future is constrained by our inability to overcome the intergovernmental dimension with its paralysing effect, to which nationalists relate. Our old continent deserves better,' concluded Mr Goerens.