"Prime Ministers and Presidents must now shoulder responsibility" says Duff

10.00.00am GMT Tue 11th Jan 2005

Andrew Duff, Euro MP for the East of England spoke in Strasbourg today on behalf of the Liberals (ALDE) in the European Parliament.

"This resolution gets the story right", stated Andrew Duff, (UK Liberal Democrat) during Parliament's debate today on the Constitution approved by Member States last June. "All delegations of the ALDE group will be supporting it".

"The main argument for the Constitution is that it strengthens the European Union. It enhances our capacity to act at home and abroad, and makes us able to stand on our own feet in world affairs and shape Europe's response to globalisation in a political way". he added, "Prime Ministers and Presidents must coordinate their campaigns and shoulder both individual and collective responsibility to win these referendum campaigns by showing their voters why this Constitution is truly for them and truly a constitution for Europe."

"A word to those eurosceptics who criticise from the sidelines: if you are for Europe, you should be for the Constitution. Europe cannot be constructed without clear, liberal and social values, strong rules and robust parliamentary democracy. Europe will not work without strong and effective institutions in Brussels. Without the Constitution, Europe will grind to a halt and the quality of legislation will decline."

Graham Watson also launched today the ALDE group website on the Constitution providing details of the ratification process, common questions and answers about the Constitution and an explanation of the position of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe. See http://alde.europarl.eu.int/constitution.

ENDS