stylistic choices and perceived attitudes of nigel farage

2017

Author: Merijn Kooijman Supervisor: Maarten van Leeuwen

[STYLISTIC CHOICES AND PERCEIVED ATTITUDES OF NIGEL FARAGE AND GUY VERHOFSTADT]

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Table of contents 1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………3

2. Theoretical framework……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6

2.1 Principles of modern linguistic stylistics ............................................................................................ 6

2.1.1 Style as a meaningful choice ...................................................................................................... 6

2.1.2 Micro and macro levels .............................................................................................................. 7

2.2 Stylistic indicators for an anti- or pro-European attitude ................................................................. 9

2.2.1 Metaphors .................................................................................................................................. 9

2.2.2 Personal pronouns ..................................................................................................................... 9

3. Methods and results…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….11

3.1 Corpus .............................................................................................................................................. 11

3.2 Checklist analysis and final list ..................................................................................................... 13

3.3 Operationalisation and results ........................................................................................................ 14

3.3.1 Metaphors ................................................................................................................................ 15

Definition and operationalisation ................................................................................................. 15

Results ........................................................................................................................................... 15

3.3.2 Personal pronouns; who is we?................................................................................................ 22


Results ........................................................................................................................................... 23

3.3.3 Modality in ‘need’ .................................................................................................................... 27

3.3.4 Word choice: creating pro-/anti-European semantic categories ............................................. 30


Results ........................................................................................................................................... 31

3.3.5 Evaluative nature: past tense vs. present tense ...................................................................... 36


Results ........................................................................................................................................... 36

3.3.6 Evaluative nature: intensifiers .................................................................................................. 39


Results ........................................................................................................................................... 41

4. Conclusion & Discussion………………………………………………………………………………………………………….......43

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..46

Appendix 1: Corpus overview ................................................................................................................ 48

Appendix 2: Stylistic features that did not contribute to the attitudes …………………………………………….49

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Appendix 3: Checklist (by Leech & Short 2007, p. 61 – 64) ……………………………………………………………….51

Appendix 4: Debate contributions by Farage…………………………………………………………………………………….54

Appendix 5: Debate contributions by Verhofstadt……………………………………………………………………………72

Appendix 6: Coded corpora for quantitative data…………………………………………………………………………….95

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1 Introduction

Since the early 90’s of the 20th century, so called Euroscepticism began to rise among citizens within

the European Union, mainly as a reaction to the Maastricht Treaty (Eichenberg & Dalton, 2007, p.42)

and the initial no-vote at the referendum in Denmark against the treaty. This ‘no’ gave rise to the

possibility to seriously doubt the EU, or The Treaty of Maastricht, back in 1992.There was the

growing wish for other referenda in other European countries (e.g. Ireland, France, The Netherlands).

Nowadays, the pro-/anti-Europe debate might be even more relevant, given the recent issues

regarding migrants/refugees, the Brexit and indirectly because of Trump’s presidency. Since the pro-

and anti-dichotomy is ubiquitous in and outside European politics and more than ever a booming

topic, it is interesting to see how politicians that are considered anti- or pro-European express this

anti- or pro-Europeanness through their ways of speaking. Two generally considered anti- and pro-

Europeanists are Nigel Farage (anti) and Guy Verhofstadt (pro). They are considered to have a pro-

and anti-European attitude, according to the public (i.e. ‘general opinion’, media and press). The

following excerpt from the Dutch news1 shows the anti-European reputation Farage has. It is a

fragment of an item about the referendum in Great-Britain about whether Britain should stay in the

EU or not.

(1) Voice-over2: Of course he walks in front, UKIP-leader Nigel Farage, the most famous

anti-EU-face of Great-Britain.

Farage: It’s just this monster in Brussel we are not terribly keen on.

Verhofstadt is often described as a Europhile3 or Euro-federalist4. The following excerpt is from

GeenStijl (2016), a Dutch news site:

(2) The train driver of the Eurocratic Train to the East has got a message for

you.

Here, Guy Verhofstadt is meant as being ‘the train driver of the Eurocratic train to the east’. By that,

he is depicted as a man in control of a big machine (Europe) that will inevitably drive on. Out of this

message it can be distilled that GeenStijl thinks of Guy Verhofstadt as a rather pro-European

politician, which is an attitude GeenStijl doesn’t seem to like.

A confirmation of the anti- and pro-European reputation of both politicians, also striking to see, is

how they describe each other within two debates5 in the European Parliament:

(3) Verhofstadt6: So I believe that in reality (…) you, Mr Farage, are against Europe, and it

is not in this way that we shall have more European cooperation.

1 NOS Journaal (2016).

2 Example (1), (2) and (3) are translated from Dutch

3 E.g. Independent (2016).

4 E.g. Breitbart (2016).

5 These debate contributions are also included in the corpora of both politicians that is analysed in this

research.

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(4) Farage7: I do not know how this will play out but at least, Mr Verhofstadt, there is a

chance of peace, and I know that you represent the kind of political class who believe

that global influence can be achieved only through bombing. Well, luckily – unlike

extreme EU nationalists like yourself – British democracy has proved that nation-

state parliaments can actually made people rethink.

Verhofstadt is showing his own pro-Europeanism (‘we shall have more European cooperation’), while

at the same time, he is claiming that Farage is anti-European. Farage does more or less the opposite:

he gives a pro-national (as opposed to European) standpoint, while at the same time, he claims that

Verhofstadt is an extreme EU nationalist (pro-Europeanist).

Contemporary research in stylistics proposes that style is a major factor in the construction of a

perceived attitude. In this view, style is defined as the linguistic choices someone makes. For

instance, in politics, Van Leeuwen (2015) has shown that small linguistic features in political debates

contribute to the perceived ‘populistic attitude’ of Geert Wilders and the perceived ‘elitist attitude’

of Alexander Pechtold, two Dutch politicians. Since there are many judgements about both Farage’s

as well as Verhofstadt’s anti- and pro-European attitude in the media, it is interesting to see how

their linguistic stylistic choices might contribute to those judgements. In this research, I will therefore

answer the following research question:

What stylistic choices do Nigel Farage and Guy Verhofstadt make in the European Parliament that

contribute to their perceived anti- and pro-European attitudes respectively?

I will answer this question by stylistically analysing two corpora that contain debate contributions in

the European Parliament by each politician between 2010 and 2016 that have the state of the EU as

a topic or the European unity in general. In the two corpora, stylistic devices are identified in two

ways. Firstly, stylistic devices that are successfully linked to pro-/anti-attitudes in other research can

be considered relevant to this research as well and will therefore be analysed. Secondly, a checklist

method (Leech & Short, 2007, p. 61) is used to identify other stylistic devices in the corpus that might

also contribute to the pro-/anti-European attitudes of both politicians.

This specific structure and methodology of the research is a key part of the relevance of it. Although

using a checklist and generally trying to keep a wide scope while identifying possibly relevant stylistic

features is a method that has been proposed many years ago as a partial solution to the subjective

nature of linguistic stylistic research (e.g. Leech & Short (2007, p. 61)), it is definitely not a standard

procedure in linguistic stylistics (Van Leeuwen, 2014, p. 226). This research could show the value of

actually using a checklist. Namely, as Van Leeuwen (2014, p. 237-238) argues, using a checklist could

be valuable for multiple reasons. Firstly, the stylistic analysis could become less ad hoc than when no

checklist is used. Secondly, the checklist has a heuristic function: using a checklist could prevent

relevant stylistic features to be overlooked8. This research tests these advantages of using a stylistic

checklist and see if and how they apply.

This research thesis kicks off by discussing the principles of modern linguistic stylistics in section 2.1.

Section 2.2 then addresses other research that already successfully linked specific stylistic features to

6 From the Motion of censure on the Commission (debate); Verhofstadt (2014).

7 From the Situation in Syria (debate); Farage (2013).

8 See section 2.1.2. for the claimed advantages of using a checklist.

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an anti- or pro-attitude and are therefore deemed to be interesting for this research as well. After

introducing the corpus (3.1), section 3.2 shows the process of the checklist analysis and presents the

final list of stylistic features that will be analysed further. This final list contains the stylistic features

that were found in previous research (section 2.2) plus the checklist findings. Sections 3.3.1 to 3.3.6

discuss the exact operationalisation and definitions of each analysed stylistic feature. These sections

also contain the (qualitative and/or quantitative) corpus analyses of each stylistic feature. Based on

these results, the research question will be answered.

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2 Theoretical framework

2.1 Principles of modern linguistic stylistics

2.1.1 Style as a meaningful choice Although the field of linguistic stylistics is diverse nowadays, in modern stylistics, style is often

considered to be a meaningful choice9. Style is a choice. Roughly, this assumption is based on the fact

that utterances can always be paraphrased by using different words, syntax, or text structure. A

speaker always has different linguistic options to construct what he wants to say, while talking about

the same reality. Single linguistic features, on multiple levels10 in a text (Verdonk, 2006, p. 203), show

that choices have been made. These choices can be made consciously or unconsciously. Choices must

have been made, because a speaker always has other possibilities in which he could have formulated

the same arguments or standpoints (in the case of a political debate). The inevitable availability of

other formulation options makes a specific construal of a situation subjective by definition, because

another person could have made other stylistic choices to describe the same situation (Van Leeuwen,

2015, p. 14). Examples (1) and (2) illustrate that language use requires linguistic choices:

(1) [description of a hotel of which 50% of the rooms are occupied by guests]

a. Only half of the rooms are vacant.

b. Only half of the rooms are booked.

(2) [description of 100 people standing in front of the parliamentary building, holding up

banners]

a. There is riffraff outside not agreeing with the current policy.

b. There is a massive demonstration going on against the tyrannical regime.

For both examples, it can be agreed on that sentences a and b could possibly be a fitting description

of the given situation. They are representations of the same reality. However, it is very doubtful if a

and b have the same meaning.

Linguistic stylistics argues that those linguistic choices do indeed not have the same meaning and are

semantically not interchangeable (Verhagen, 2007). That is, 50% ‘vacant’ is not the same as 50%

‘booked’. Also notice how in (2a), no demonstration is mentioned, while there is no mentioning of

any kind of people in (2b). All sentences construct the given situation in a different way; within

modern linguistic stylistics, this is called construal (Langacker, (2000, p. 26-27) & Verhagen (2007))

9 Within modern linguistic stylistics, a multitude of approaches to style can be distinguished. Namely, style as a

possible form for a specific content, style as a choice (of specific patterns) and style as a deviation from the norm. Each of those pose certain problems. Those approaches and their problems are further described in Renkema (2004, p. 148-150). For this research, I will zoom in on the style as a choice approach to style, since this approach is commonly used in contemporary stylistic research. 10

1. Graphology, 2. Phonology, 3. Lexis, 4. Syntax; grammar, 5. Semantics, 6. Pragmatics; discourse

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Due to the fact that a given situation can be linguistically construed in different ways, evaluations of

those situations in the light of the different construals will also be different. That is, the conclusions

that can be drawn from a sentence will be different if different linguistic choices have been made.

E.g. the evaluation of an hotel that is ‘only half vacant’ is that this amount of bookings is a positive

thing for the specific hotel, while the evaluation of ‘only half booked’ is that this amount of bookings

is a negative thing for the hotel. The evaluation of the people holding up banners in example (2a) is

rather negative. Someone who totally agrees with fragment (2a), concluded that the people holding

banners are ‘riffraff’ and is thereby probably also more focused on when the ‘riffraff’ will leave,

instead of when ‘the current policy’ will be changed or revised. Fragment (2b) pushes more towards

the conclusion that ‘the tyrannical regime’ might fall or towards the conclusion that a bloody

clearance of the demonstration will occur.

Besides those presuppositions of possible evaluations, based on cognitive linguistic insights, there is

also experimental linguistic research that proves that different linguistic representations sort out

different evaluations, that have a different effect (e.g. Fausey & Boroditsky (2010), Holleman,

Kamoen & De Vreese (2013, p. 31)). For instance, Fausey & Boroditsky (2010) shows that when

participants are presented different linguistic representations of the same negative action, the

participants will judge more negatively on the actor of this negative action when the actor is

displayed as an agent than when the actor is not linguistically present (E.g. ‘She ignited the napkin’

vs. ‘The napkin ignited’).

2.1.2 Micro and macro level Now that it is established that style is a choice that has certain (persuasive) effects, it is good to look

at the aim of modern linguistic stylistics. The following quote by Leech & Short (2007, p.11) is a good

introduction to a possible aim of stylistics:

(3) Stylistics (…) is rarely undertaken for its own sake, simply as an exercise in describing

what use is made of language. We normally study style because we want to explain

something (…).

In other words, linguistic stylistics aims to relate linguistic choices to broader phenomena. Linking

linguistic features to language transcending terms is called linking micro (linguistic) level terms to

macro level terms (Anbeek & Verhagen, 2001, p. 23). Linguistic stylistics aims to ‘explain’ how

linguistic choices contribute to the impressions of a piece of discourse as a whole.

As already touched upon in the introduction, Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 89-148) is a good example of

how the linguistic choices of a speaker (micro level) contribute to more general impression (macro

level) of a piece of discourse as a whole. In this research, Van Leeuwen shows how the linguistic

choices of two politicians (Alexander Pechtold and Geert Wilders) in the Dutch parliament contribute

to the impressions that those two politicians are respectively in- and outsiders in the Dutch politics

(macro). He does so, for instance, by analysing the use of linguistic choices that let the voting public

‘enter a debate’ by the use of verbs of cognition, the amount of exclusive and exclusive use of ‘we’,

and other linguistic constructions.

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To identify the (micro level) stylistic choices that were relevant to his research, Van Leeuwen (2015)

made use of a stylistic checklist. A stylistic checklist is a tool to identify stylistic features that are

already in a piece of discourse (Verhagen, 2001, p. 1). According to Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 87 – 88,

177 – 178), using a stylistic checklist has multiple advantages. Two big advantages of using a stylistic

checklist that Van Leeuwen (2015) mentions, are that a stylistic checklist has an heuristic function

and that the bottom-up analysis will be more systematic and less ad hoc (than just ‘checking’ without

checklist).. These two claimed advantages will now be shortly discussed along the lines of Van

Leeuwen’s (2015) research.

In Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 112 – 120) the use of a stylistic checklist made the analyst conclude that

placing entities like ‘the people’, ‘the voters’, ‘the citizens’ etc. in a subject position is a stylistic

feature that contributes to Wilders’ perceived ‘distant attitude’, distant from politics, closer to ‘the

citizens’. Here, the fact that Wilders often places these entities in subject position can be seen as a

reflection of Wilders’ distant attitude; Wilders unconsciously actually feeling ‘distant from politics’,

while also making well-considered linguistic choices to achieve maximum effect. According to Van

Leeuwen (2015, p. 177 – 178), this stylistic feature might not have been found if a checklist hadn’t

been used; the heuristic functionality (Van Leeuwen, 2015, p. 236) of the checklist might have forced

the analyst to keep a wide scope, which led to finding this stylistic feature.

Secondly, Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 88) claims that working with a stylistic checklist made his analysis

less ad hoc. That is, in stylistic research that aims to link stylistic choices with macro level impressions

that does not make use of a checklist, the selection criteria for including specific stylistic choices in

the analysis might be unclear. Why did the researcher include specific stylistic choices in his analysis?

A reader of such a research can often hardly tell the answer to that question. According to Van

Leeuwen (2015, p. 88), using a stylistic checklist does not totally tackle this problem, because a

researcher always has to choose the ‘relevant’ stylistic features in the end, but a checklist analysis at

least gives a reader some insight in how the analysed stylistic choices were identified.

Linking stylistic choices on the micro level to macro level impressions is also an essential part of this

research. After all, the research question is how the stylistic choices (micro) of Farage and

Verhofstadt contribute to the perceived attitudes (macro) of the two politicians. To be able to link

stylistic choices to the perceived attitudes, the specific stylistic choices that could contribute to those

perceived attitudes must be known. To identify the relevant stylistic choices, a stylistic checklist will

be used along the lines of Van Leeuwen (2015). Since the macro level impressions of this research are

different from the impressions in Van Leeuwen (2015), it can be expected that the relevant stylistic

choices that resulted from the checklist analysis will be different as well. As such, this research is also

a test-case for Van Leeuwen’s (2015) claims on the advantages of using a checklist, as discussed

above. The specific checklist that is used and the checklist analysis will be discussed in section

3.2.Although using a checklist might have the advantages discussed above, it would be a shame to

not include stylistic features that are already known to contribute to pro-/anti-(European) attitudes

into the analysis in the first place. Therefore, existing literature in the field of linguistic stylistics

applied to politics will also be scanned on relevant stylistic features in a top-down manner (theory

applied to the object of research). This literature scan resulted in two relevant stylistic features,

which will be discussed in section 2.2.

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The complete list of identified relevant (and irrelevant) stylistic features will be discussed in section

3.2.

2.2 Stylistic indicators for an anti- or pro-European attitude This section contains the stylistic features that were discovered by looking at existing literature. This

literature was collected at different university courses, by searching through the UL online catalogue

on topical and linguistic keywords11 and by looking through references of other papers/articles. The

two stylistic features that were found to be relevant to this research were metaphors and the use of

the personal pronoun ‘we’. These two stylistic features and their link with pro-/anti-European

attitudes will be discussed shortly in the following sections.

2.2.1 Metaphors A stylistic feature that might contribute to a perceived anti- or pro-European attitude is the use of

metaphors. Namely, metaphors often contain a positive or negative evaluation towards an entity.

That entity can be ‘Europe’. Musolff (2004) shows that within European politics, there is an active

metaphor that presents Europe, the E.U. or nation-states within as a human being that can be ill, be

cared for, be healed, deteriorate, et cetera. ‘Consequently, metaphors describing an institution as ill

are used for critical judgements, and the promise of recovery, care or, if need be, medical treatment

is valued positively’ (Musolff, 2004, p. 97). Kövecses (2010, p. 290) shows another metaphor, in

which the political structure of the E.U. is portrayed as a building. Namely, the Maastricht Treaty and

the Euro are seen as a fundament that can be built upon. The evaluations of these metaphors can be

pro-European or anti-European (e.g. ‘Europe is healing from the crisis’ vs. ‘Europe is dying a painful

death’; ‘The E.U. is built upon great trust‘ vs. ‘The fundaments of the E.U. are rotting’). If Verhofstadt

and Farage use positive or negative evaluations of Europe conveyed through metaphors, this might

contribute to their perceived pro- or anti-European attitude.

2.2.2 Personal pronouns A recurring theme nowadays within linguistic stylistics is the construction of a specific identity by the

use of pronouns. For instance, by using ‘we’, a speaker can implicitly show who he associates himself

with. The context can often show what people or groups a ‘we’ or ‘they’ in a text refers to. Thereby it

can be determined who is included in the in-group and who is excluded from the in-group and is in

the out-group. Good examples of such analyses are Cramer (2010) (Europeanness) , Crawford (2015)

(Britishness), Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 146 – 148) (Distance to politics/society) and De Fina, A. (1995)

(Individuality and expertise).

For instance, Crawford (2015, p. 744) argues that in a speech to encourage Scotsmen to vote ‘no’ in

the Scottish referendum and thereby stay part of United Kingdom, David Cameron is constructing a

situation in which Scotland is intrinsically included within the United Kingdom by using sentences like

‘we have built a United Kingdom that also coheres around the values embodied in standing up for

freedom and democracy around the globe.’, as if ‘we’ is a uniform entity, including Scotland and

himself. By doing so, Cameron is creating the concept of Britishness. Taking the whole speech into

consideration, the use of ‘we’ here is odd, or ‘rhetorically strategic’ (Crawford, 2015, p. 746), because

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Some of the used linguistic keywords: ‘linguistic indicators attitude’ ‘indexing Europeanness’, ‘linguistic contributors attitude’. Some of the used topical keywords: ‘Farage language use’, ‘Verhofstadt language use’, ‘pro-European language’, ‘anti-European language’.

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earlier on in Cameron’s speech, Cameron focussed on the multi-nationality and diversity within the

United Kingdom. Thereby he (Crawford, 2015, p. 744 – 745) impales Cameron on his own sword, so

to say. He used the content of the speech and stylistic (pronoun) choices to show the inconsistency in

Cameron’s speech.

Cramer (2010) links pronominal use, especially the use of ‘we’, to Europeanness. She argues that in

speeches by a Turkish minister, the former MP of Denmark and the President of the European

Parliament, those three politicians all show their degree of Europeanness, the degree to which they

claim to have a European identity. For the Turkish minister most of the uses of ‘we’ are retraceable

to ‘we, as Turkey’ and therefore he shows a strictly non-European identity (Cramer, 2005, p. 634). On

the other hand, the Turkish minister is also being put in the out-group by the pronominal use by

Danish MP, because the MP connects ‘we’ with non-Islamic. Based on this research, it can be

expected that Farage would refer to Europe (or something European) as ‘we’ less times than

Verhofstadt does. Verhofstadt would want to place Europe in an in-group, while Farage would want

to put Europe in an out-group, a group that Farage (and/or his group) is not part of.

Concretely, it can be expected that the entities within the in-group will be different for both

politicians, because, as the abovementioned examples show, ‘we’ can be used to whom a speaker

associates himself or others with.

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3 Methods and results

In this section, the corpus, methods and results of this research are discussed. The methods and

results are categorized by stylistic feature. The stylistic features discussed in sections 3.1 and 3.2 are

thought to be interesting for this research, based on other studies/literature, as discussed in section

2.2. The stylistic features discussed in the other sections (3.3 – 3.6) are thought to be interesting for

this research, based on the analysis with the stylistic checklist, as will be discussed in section 3.2.

3.1 Corpus The corpus consists of speeches from 2010 to 2016 by Guy Verhofstadt and Nigel Farage in the

European Parliament. All speeches have in common that anti-/pro-European standpoints have been

brought forward in them.

Those standpoints are brought forward particularly often in the debates following the State of the

Union, an annual speech held by the president of the European Commission, in which the plans of

action by the European Commission for the upcoming year are presented to the European

Parliament. The European Commission holds the legislative power within the European Union.

Since the State of the Union is not focussed on a specific subject, but covers the plans of the

European Commission on a more general level, the debate on the State of the Union is the ultimate

possibility to defend or attack the idea of a European Union as a political entity. Therefore, all debate

contributions by Guy Verhofstadt and Nigel Farage in the debates on the State of the Unions from

2010 to 2015 are included in the corpus12.

Aside from the State of the Union debates, other debates are included in the corpus. For the sake of

fair comparison, the topics of the debates taken into the corpus, are kept roughly the same. This

means that if a speech by Farage on the topic of migration flows is taken into the corpus, the speech

in that same debate held by Verhofstadt, is included in the corpus as well. However, Farage did not

participate in every debate in which Verhofstadt participated and vice versa. Although this could be

problematic, especially for the quantitative parts of this research, this problem is partly tackled by

the topics of the single-politician debate contributions all being quite uniform, topically (they all

somehow feature the future of Europe).

Apart from the State of the Union debates, all other speeches can roughly be divided into two

groups: speeches that address the future of Europe (Future of Europe, presentation of the program

of the new Commissioners) and speeches in which Europe is somehow opposed to another country

or problem (Hungary, Greece, migrants, et cetera). The former can be seen as another ideal moment

to present ideological political pro-/anti-European standpoints on a general level, in the same way

the State of the Union debates are a good occasion for that. The debate contributions in which

Europe is opposed to something else, are good moments to emphasize the unity and identity of

Europe or on the contrary, emphasize that a certain problem is caused by diversity within Europe; a

12

In 2014, no State of the Union had been held, because of the start of a new term in the European Commission. Debate contribution 9 (in the appendix) can be regarded as complementary for the State of the Union, since the new Commission (Juncker) presented its plans in it.

12

diversity that is not addressed by the European Union. The following fragments from speeches show

occurrences of both:

Unaddressed diversity (from debate contribution 15F):

(1) Farage: And I am minded that there is a new Mrs Thatcher in Europe and he is called

Frits Bolkenstein. And he has said of this parliament - remember he is a former

Commissioner: 'It is not representative anymore for the Dutch or European citizen.

The European Parliament is living out a federal fantasy which is no longer

sustainable.’ How right he is.

Emphasizing unity (from debate contribution 11V):

(2) Verhofstadt: However, we have also made mistakes ourselves. I think the most

important error – and we have to recognise this today, before the Greek Presidency –

was made in December 2009 by not immediately backing Greece, and it was

compounded in January 2010 by talking openly about a Greek exit. That gave rise to

grave consequences, with a long period of financial instability. The two-year period of

financial instability in Europe was created because we were not more open and solid

with Greece. We gave the impression that countries could leave the eurozone and

that countries could even leave the euro system and the European Union.

In both fragments, the topic of the debate is a problem that faces the EU. Farage sees the economic

crisis of 2013 in Cyprus as an opportunity to focus on how the EU does not represent the EU citizens

and Verhofstadt argues how the EU as a whole had failed to ‘stay open and solid with Greece’ (and

thereby implicitly claims that the EU should have done so).

In short, all debate contributions adopted in the corpus have the following features in common:

- A pro-/anti-European standpoint has been brought forward in it. In this research, the terms

pro-/anti-European standpoints comprise both pro-/anti-European standpoints on a more

fundamental or ideological level, as well as standpoints that are pro or against a certain

Europe wide policy or law.

- The topic of the debate in which the debate contribution is uttered, concerns a big Europe

wide issue. (specific topics like fishing on Bluefin tuna or bullfighting in Spain are not

included.)

- The debate contribution is originally held in English (translations are kept out of the corpus,

because linguistic choices of the translator could distort the outcome of the analysis.)13

To take away possible vagueness about if the corpus consists of speeches or

interventions/contributions in debates, it must be said that most interventions/contributions in

debates within the European Parliament can actually be considered speeches. Namely, the European

Parliament has 751 members and if all those 751 members would be allowed to debate in an

interactive way (by interrupting, asking new questions, et cetera), debates in plenary would take

13

It should also be noted that Dutch, French or German parts of Verhofstadt’s speeches are sometimes included in the corpus for the sake of intelligibility of the speeches, but will not be analysed. Farage only speaks English in his speeches.

13

ages. Therefore, interventions in the Parliament are often small speeches with a limited amount of

interaction.

The fact that debate contributions are subjected to such a narrow time limit makes that debate

contributions in the European Parliament are always well-prepared and often read out from a paper.

This is almost necessary, because the speaking time a politician has, is based on the amount of chairs

that’s politicians party or fraction holds in the Parliament14. This means that if Farage or Verhofstadt

wants to make a powerful, persuasive debate contribution, they have to cram in all this persuasive

power into one speech and thereby weigh out very carefully what they will or will not say

beforehand15. Due to the short amount of time, they have to make their (stand)points quickly.

All debate contributions in the corpus are transcriptions from the website of the European

Parliament16. Those transcriptions are, however, not strictly literal. Grammatical errors, (accidental)

word repetitions and hitches are kept out of the transcripts or are corrected.

The corpus of Farage contains 10.044 words, spread out over 19 debate contributions.

The corpus of Verhofstadt contains 13.835 words, spread out over 14 speeches.

All debate contributions are numbered, so that it is easy to refer to the debate contributions by their

numbers (e.g. 2V = State of the Union 2013 by Verhofstadt, 12F = Economic governance 2011, by

Farage). An overview of all debate contributions is attached to this thesis (appendix 1).

3.2 Checklist analysis and final list In section 2.2, the first two stylistic features that may possibly contribute to the perceived attitudes

of both politicians were identified by using existing literature. As discussed in section 2.1.2, a stylistic

checklist was used to identify more stylistic features that possibly contribute to the perceived

attitudes on top of the features identified in section 2.2 in order to keep a wide scope. The checklist

that is used for this research is the stylistic checklist by Leech & Short (2007, p. 61). This checklist is

attached in appendix 3 of this thesis. The checklist consists of four categories with each category

focussing on a different level of language; A, lexical categories, B, grammatical categories, C, figures

of speech and D, context and cohesion.

The checklist was used along the lines of Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 36 – 39). Firstly, the stylistic

differences between the two politicians’ corpora were identified by using the checklist bottom-up, as

an heuristic tool (Van Leeuwen, 2014, p. 228). Secondly, from the list of identified differing stylistic

features, the ones that might contribute to the perceived pro- or anti-European attitudes were

decided upon in a top-down manner.

The first phase of the analysis revealed multiple stylistic differences between Verhofstadt and

Farage. The differences in stylistic features that were identified are shown in table (1).

(Table 1)

14

This explains the fact that all speeches by Farage are shorter than Verhofstadt’s speeches. The EVD/EVDD fraction (Farage) holds fewer chairs than the ALDE fraction (Verhofstadt). 15

E.g. Farage had 4,5 minutes of speaking time in the State of the Union debate of 2013 (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=AGENDA&reference=20130911&secondRef=SIT&language=EN#) 16

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/debates-video.html

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=AGENDA&reference=20130911&secondRef=SIT&language=EN

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=AGENDA&reference=20130911&secondRef=SIT&language=EN

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/plenary/en/debates-video.html

14

Stylistic feature Checklist category

Sentence type (past tense vs. present tense) B6

Word choice (creating specific semantic categories) A2, A3, A5

Modality in ‘need’ A4/B6

Wh-clauses (Verhofstadt seemed to use more of them) B3

Possessive noun endings (Farage seemed to use more of them) B8

Specificity of noun phrases (Verhofstadt seemed to use more exact facts and numbers) A2/B5

Repetition with coordinating conjunctions (Verhofstadt used them remarkably often) C3/D1

Imperative constructions (Verhofstadt used them remarkably often) B3

Intensifiers A1/A3

Out of these stylistic features, only four were expected to contribute to the anti-/pro-European

attitudes of the politicians17. The other stylistic features in table (1) are shortly discussed in appendix

2.

Table (2) shows the final list of stylistic features that were analysed, including the ones from section

2.2.

Table (2)

Metaphors

Personal pronoun: ‘we’

Modality in ‘need’

Word choice (creating specific semantic categories)

Sentence type (past tense vs. present tense)

Intensifiers

In the following sections, the analyses of these stylistic features will be discussed in this order. The

coding18 of the quantitative analyses of these stylistic features can be found in appendix 6 of this

thesis. Appendix 6 also includes an index for interpreting the coded files.

3.3 Operationalisation and results The statistical significances of the quantitative results presented in this section were calculated by

using log likelihood. This is a method that enables a researcher to effectively compare the

frequencies of specific phenomena in two corpora, even if these frequencies are relatively small (Vis,

Sanders & Spooren, 2009, p. 415). Concretely, the calculations were done by using the log likelihood

calculator19. Significance is indicated in the frequency tables by an asterisk and a bold font.

17

The other stylistic features were considered to not contribute to the pro-/anti-European attitude. Some of these features will be discussed shortly in the discussion. 18

The coding was done in Atlas.ti 7, a computer software for qualitative text analysis, that also happens to be useful for generating quantitative data. The past tense (section 3.3.5) was coded by using an automated tagger (cf. note 49). 19

http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwizard.html

http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwizard.html

15

3.3.1 Metaphors

Definition and operationalisation

For this research, a metaphor is defined as ‘a linguistic representation that results from the shift in

the use of a word or phrase from the context or domain in which it is expected to occur to another

context or domain where it is not expected to occur, thereby causing semantic tension’ (Charteris-

Black, 2004, p.21).

For identifying metaphors in the corpus, the method proposed by Charteris-Black (2004, p. 35) was

used. Firstly, candidate metaphors were identified by critically reading the speeches. Then, these

candidate metaphors were checked on three criteria, also proposed by Charteris-Black: the linguistic

criterion, the pragmatic criterion and the cognitive criterion. This means that a candidate metaphor

contributes to a semantic tension (linguistic criterion), it has an underlying persuasive purpose to

influence opinions (pragmatic criterion) and it causes a conceptual shift (cognitive criterion)

(Charteris-Black, 2004, p. 21). The metaphor analysis in this research is a qualitative analysis in which

the source domains and their implications for the target domains are discussed. Namely, according to

Charteris-Black (2011, p. 18), ‘metaphor provides a frame through which words from a literal source

domain are used to interpret a lesser known, abstract target domain.’ Every found metaphor source

domain (‘health’, ‘building’, ‘etc.) and its evaluation will be discussed in the light of a pro- or anti-

European attitude per politician.

Results

Both politicians make considerable use of metaphors. The most striking and clear occurrences will be

discussed further per politician.

The first remarkable use of metaphors by Farage that contributes to his perceived anti-European

attitude that will be discussed is his use of building metaphors. In Farage’s metaphorical world, there

are roughly two buildings: Europe and everything associated with it (excluding individual nations),

and nation states. As one would expect, the former is being evaluated negatively, while nation states

are being evaluated positively within the building metaphors he uses.

(3) The euro which you believed would give us monetary stability has done the very

opposite, it was a misconstruction from the start, and it's pretty clear that youth

unemployment, at nearly 50% across the Mediterranean, is probably nearly double

what it would have been as a direct result of the misconstruction that is the euro.

(2F)

Fragment (3) is an example of Farage framing ‘the euro’ in a negative way by using a building

metaphor. Namely, ‘the euro’ is a ‘misconstruction’, a constructing that is faulty and therefore might

collapse. Firstly, he indirectly quotes the ‘you’ who had evaluated the euro positively by the use of

‘stability’. Farage himself then stays within the terms of this metaphor and counters the positive

evaluation by giving a negative evaluation by calling the euro a ‘misconstruction’ twice. By using the

words and metaphorical domain of the addressee, turning those words and domain around, he

bashes the addressee with it ‘on its own terms’; Farage creates metaphorical contrast.

Fragment (4) is an example of Farage’s other (positively evaluated) building, which he introduces in

the same debate contribution.

16

(4) It is democratic nation states in Europe that are stable and will not go to war with

each other. (2F)

This metaphor is quite simple: nation states actually are ‘stable’ and will not collapse, as opposed to

‘the euro’ in fragment (3), according to Farage. How this stability in the source domain can be

interpreted within the target domain is probably explained in the final part of the sentence: ‘stable’

nation states are nation states that ‘will not go to war with each other’.

Back to the European building, it is interesting to look at other features of buildings that Farage

brings forward. Namely, Farage’s European building has the looks of a prison, and is designed by

architects. The following fragments (from different debate contributions) show these features.

(5) But what you want to do is to say, right, we have a European Union and what we're

going to have to do now is to have more of it. So as an architect - and you're one of

the key architects of the current failure - what we're going to do, even though

everything to date has been wrong - we're going to do more of the same. (4F)

(6) (…) she saw that this [i.e. the European Project] was a very dangerous design. (15F)

(7) (…) they too are trapped in the euro prison. (3F)

As fragment (5) shows, the ‘you’ (Head of Commission) is considered to be an ‘architect’. Although

there is nothing inherently wrong with being an architect, the use of the word ‘architect’ contributes

to the negative evaluation of the European Union. Namely, architects are usually in charge of the

design of buildings and although an architect could choose to involve other people in this process, he

has the sole right to determine the looks and structure of a building. So, if this underlying

presupposition of the word ‘architect’ is transferred back to the target domain, by using the word

‘architect’, Farage is implicitly claiming that the European Union is an imposed project, imposed by

its designers.

Fragments (6) and (7) also point at this deliberateness in imposing by the European Union. The euro

is depicted as a prison and as having a very dangerous design. In fragment (7), the presupposed

deliberateness is conceived within ‘prison’. Namely, Farage could have said something like: ‘they are

too trapped into the euro cave’ or ‘they are too trapped under the ice of the euro’. These

alternatives both presuppose no entities deliberately locking ‘them’ up: ice and a cave have no

inherent function of trapping people under/inside it. A prison is intentionally designed to lock people

in. This intentionality is also addressed metaphorically in the context of the nation state building in

fragment (8).

(8) Your obsession with creating20 this Euro state means that you're happy to destroy

democracy. (19F)

In fragment (8), the intentionality (‘your obsession’) in design is not displayed through a building

metaphor, but it shows the relationship between the ‘architects’ and the other building, (nation

20

In this fragment, ‘creating’ can also be seen as a building metaphor (embedded within the ‘obsession’). However, for the sake of clarity, only the metaphor that is discussed is underlined. This also goes for other fragments that happen to contain important stylistic features, besides the ones discussed at that point.

17

state) ‘democracy’. The designers are ‘happy’ to destroy a building that is considered to be stable (in

fragment (3)).

Farage’s European building also has a base. Fragment (9) vaguely describes the ‘base’ of the

European building.

(9) I believe the whole European project is based on a falsehood. (8F)

Although it’s hard to imagine what ‘a falsehood’ could look like in building terms, it’s not hard to

imagine that there is something wrong with a building based on it. However, Farage also suggests a

design for a positive Europe (in his opinion).

(10) (…) we must try to build a Europe. I want a Europe, but a Europe based on trade, a

Europe based on cooperation, a Europe based on us sitting round the table and

agreeing sensible rules on crime and the environment. (16F)

The foundations of Farage’s Europe are ‘trade’, ‘cooperation’, ‘us sitting round the table and

agreeing sensible rules on crime and environment’. This is interesting, because all these things are

dynamic processes, while ‘foundations’ of buildings always seem to be definite and static. Note that

in fragment (10), the building metaphor itself has no negative evaluation for Europe. The only

negative message towards Europe (according to Farage) within fragment (10) is the fact that

fragment (10) is not yet the case nowadays. (Europe is based on other things that Farage probably

does not approve of.)

Besides the building metaphor, Farage also uses other source domains to display Europe in a

negative way. Fragment (11) portrays pro-European ideology/politics as a plant or root of a plant that

is growing aggressively.

(11) And the intolerance is so deep that when we get referendums in France, the

Netherlands and Ireland that reject your view, you see it - as a political class - as a

problem to be overcome. So I'm very worried about the whole root of this Union.

There is a new [euro-21] nationalism that is sweeping Europe. (4F)

In fragment (11) there is a kind of (hidden, implicit) entity, a ‘deep root’ that ‘sweeps’ Europe. It is

hard to pinpoint the exact referent(s) of these hidden entities. They are in fact, deep roots, which are

invisible. This vagueness could very well be invoked on purpose by Farage, given Farage’s tendency

to address the alleged undemocratic/unaccountable nature of the European power. By hiding who is

in charge, Farage might create a sense of opaqueness around European decision-making.

(12) (…) a project which, however noble its original intentions, has gone rotten. (7F)

Fragment (12) also shows a plant/root metaphor. This occurrence is remarkable because of the fact

that ‘rotten’ implies that the ‘project’ also had a non-rotten, healthy state. This is an implication you

21

It is unclear whether this is added by the transcriber or actually said by Farage; the brackets are included in the original transcript. However, the addition ‘[euro-]’ is essential for the understanding of the sentence: Farage is not using ‘nationalism’ to mean anything ‘national’, but only the ideals of having one united Europe (as if it were a nation).

18

wouldn’t particularly expect from an anti-European perspective. Fragment (13) shows that health

metaphors22 can also have this implication of ‘a possible healthy state’.

(13) (…) I know that you'll never ever admit to that, and the euro I think will die a very

slow and painful death. (2F)

Still, it can be argued that the health metaphor in fragment (13) contributes to Farage’s anti-

European attitude. Namely, it is interesting to interpret the implications that ‘a very slow and painful

death’ has in the source domain and then transfer these implications to the target domain. ‘Slow’ can

be interpreted as a slow decline in value of the Euro. The implication of ‘painful’ is way harder to

interpret in the target domain, because the ‘Euro’ is not an entity that can experience the

consequences of its own decline in value. It can be argued that the use of ‘painful death’ here

contributes to Farage’s anti-European attitude, because it implicitly focusses on the (negative)

consequences of a decline in value of the Euro and those consequences can be ‘felt’. Fragments (14)

and (15) are other examples in which metaphorical patients undergo/feel the consequences of the

Euro/the ‘Euro dream’.

(14) Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro dream can continue. (19F)

(15) France is now severely diminished, trapped inside a currency from which, frankly, it

cannot recover (…) (7F)

In fragments (14) and (15), the metaphorical patients are the people and the nation France.

Fragment (15) in particular implies that nation-states have a healthy state, a state in which they do

not suffer from ‘Europeanness’. It is also striking to see the explicit contrast Farage makes in (14) and

(15) between the sickness (‘Euro dream’/’a currency’) vs. the patients (‘untold millions’/’France’).

Both the negative metaphorical evaluation of Europe as well as this strong contrast seem to

contribute to Farage’s perceived anti-European attitude.

On the other hand, fragment (16) is an example of Farage using a health metaphor in which he

explicitly excludes the possibility of a ‘healthy state’.

(16) (…) the common currency [i.e. the euro], this ill-conceived political attempt to force

people into a monetary union without ever asking any of them whether they wanted

to be there. (5F)

In fragment (16), the implication of a healthy state of ‘a common currency’ is explicitly tackled by the

fact that it is ‘ill-conceived’, meaning it was already ill from the beginning. This thereby excludes the

possibility of ‘the Euro’ ever becoming something positive, which is a very anti-European evaluation.

Fragments (17) to (19) show some occurrences of other metaphors Farage used. Their overarching

feature is that they all evaluate Europe negatively.

Journey (ship):

22

Sometimes, the exact source domain of a metaphor is unclear. For instance, it cannot be said with certainty whether fragment (4) inevitably has a building metaphor in it, or whether ‘stable’ is to be interpreted as stable health. However, in the light of an anti-European attitude, it is not that relevant whether it is a building metaphor or health metaphor; the importance lies in the negative evaluation of Europe.

19

(17) (…) the EU Titanic has now hit the iceberg. (16F)

(18) Mr President, we are embarked upon a course of almost unbelievable stupidity. (6F)

Europe is an animal23:

(19) It was a great liberation for us and of course once having been bitten we didn't join

the euro project thank goodness. (3F)

Some final interesting remarks to make are that within the journey (ship) metaphors, the ship will

probably have a captain. Again, this captain is kept implicit. Also, the Titanic comparison could be

interpreted as an accusation of hybris, unjust feelings of invincibility. Note that this hybris can easily

be compared with ‘the Euro dream’ in fragment (14), since both point at being in a state in which

someone is blind for the consequences of something (asleep and/or blinded by the prospects of

great success).

Verhofstadt also uses multiple metaphors, of which some seem to be opposite versions of the

metaphors used by Farage, as will be shown. Verhofstadt uses building metaphors that evaluate

Europe positively.

(20) (…) by doing so we establish once and for all real European democracy in which the

voters are deciding what is happening and it is not by accident that it is

happening. It is the result of the long, long way that we have walked together24, it is

the result of the Convention we established in 2001 (…) (10V)

‘Real European democracy’ is probably a positive thing (according to Verhofstadt). Therefore, in

fragment (20), ‘the Convention’ can be interpreted as a foundation for the building, ‘real European

democracy’ that is built upon it. Also, the establishment of real European democracy could very well

be another foundation to build upon even further in the future. Verhofstadt is building Europe more

often. As fragment (22) shows, he also explicitly calls specific decisions/law-making ‘building blocks’.

(21) You will not restore that transfer mechanism if we do not establish a real Banking

Union with a single resolution mechanism based not on national resolutions but on

the proposal from the Commission. (11V)

(22) (…) a proposal for a single financial supervisor, which is one of the three building

blocks for a banking union. But what I do not understand is why the Commission is

not also taking the initiative on the other building blocks that are needed to solve this

crisis. (3V)

In fragment (21), Verhofstadt implicitly positively evaluates ‘that transfer mechanism’, because

saying that it can be restored implies that it has a good, functioning state, which is not the state in

which it is now, but does exist, and did exist once. Whether ‘restore’ points at a health metaphor or a

building metaphor is open for debate (cf. note 22), but the positive evaluation is clear. Also, since

23

Also note Farage mentioning the ‘monster in Brussels’ in the first fragment in the introduction section. 24

Cf. note 20. In this fragment, ‘we have walked together’ is a journey metaphor. However, for the sake of clarity, only the metaphor that is discussed is underlined. This journey metaphor by Verhofstadt is discussed shortly at the end of this section.

20

‘restore’ is accompanied by other building metaphors (‘establish’ and ‘based’), it seems to fit the

context as a building metaphor.

In Verhofstadt’s debate contributions, the looks or features of Verhofstadt’s Euro building are not as

clear as the appearance of Farage’s buildings. However, fragment (23) gives some clues.

(23) And what the independent analysis, produced in the City of London, shows is that the

breakup of the euro would create an economic meltdown in Europe, and that the

first victim of that would be Germany, naturally. (20V)

Here, the ‘euro’ is depicted as a building (something that can be broken up) and it this building seems

to be a nuclear reactor. It should be said that the Macmillan Dictionary (online) presents two

definitions of ‘meltdown’: the first one is within the context of a nuclear reactor and the second one

is a meltdown within a financial situation. However, whether the meaning of ‘meltdown’ in fragment

(23) is purely metaphorical or not, is not very relevant for interpreting the pro-European evaluation

of it. Moreover, there are signs within fragment (23) that it is actually metaphorical here25. The

evaluations of the metaphor in fragment (23) are multifaceted. A nuclear reactor produces power,

which is, in itself, a good thing. However, a nuclear reactor is also often considered to be dangerous.

Verhofstadt counters this danger by implying that only breaking it up would lead to the feared

‘meltdown’, which would see Germany as its first ‘victim’. Translated back to the context of the euro,

Verhofstadt implies that the euro should not be abolished, because only if it would be abolished, it

would have severe, negative consequences.

Besides the building metaphors discussed above (and reoccurrences of that same metaphor in the

same manifestation), no other pro-European building metaphors were found. Other metaphors

Verhofstadt used that could contribute to his perceived pro-European attitude were health

metaphors, fighting metaphors and journey metaphors.

(24) This is a crisis about the euro, about the European Union and, in fact, a crisis today

about the existence – the vital existence – of the European Union. (4V)

(25) There is ‘the 28’, there is Schengen, there is the euro, there is the patent, there are

the opt-ins and the opt-outs, the enhanced cooperation, the derogations – it is chaos

at the moment – and Europe needs one strong heart to survive in the future. (7V)

(26) I think that what is killing the Union today is that Union à la carte (…) (21V)

Portraying Europe as a human being, something vital that needs a ‘strong heart to survive’ and can

be killed has multiple pro-European evaluations. The presence of these metaphors is in line with

Musolff (2004), as discussed in section 2.2.1. The first positive evaluation is simply that ‘Europe lives’.

The European Union is assigned a parameter that abstract things don’t usually have: abstract things

aren’t alive, nor death. Presenting Europe as a living creature or human being makes the abstract

thing (E.U.) more knowledgeable and tangible. Furthermore, saying that ‘Europe needs one strong

heart’ frames the notion of centralised power in a way that it is needed by definition. As soon as a

reader or listener accepts the implication that Europe is a living creature (which is implied by ‘strong

25

Namely, the context of another building metaphor (‘breakup’), the specific mention of ‘victims’ and the fact that Verhofstadt explicitly mentions ‘economic meltdown’, in which ‘economic’ was not necessary if ‘meltdown’ already meant ‘financial meltdown’.

21

heart’), he can hardly deny the necessity of that creature having a heart, which can be seen as the

central core that makes the body and its other organs function properly. If Verhofstadt would have

said something like ‘Europe needs one centralised power that rules all individual countries’, this

necessity of having just that would not have been obvious in itself, but just Verhofstadt’s opinion.

Arguing for more centralised European power can easily be interpreted as pro-European.

Another metaphor that will be discussed is a fighting metaphor that Verhofstadt happens to use to

distance himself from the anti-European/Eurosceptics (both are Verhofstadt’s words).

(27) But I think it should be more between Eurosceptics, who think that you can put the

world outside your borders, and pro-European forces, and I hope that all the pro-

European forces can be united to beat the Eurosceptics. (2V)

(28) And I want to tell these people in these two big groups, and maybe in other groups,

that by doing so what they are doing is intending to side with the anti-Europeans.

(10V)

In fragments (27) and (28), Verhofstadt does several things. He displays the debate in the Parliament

as if it is a fight between two sides. Also, apparently, one of the two sides could win (and thereby

overrule the other side). It should be said that both sentences are from debate contributions that are

partly about upcoming elections. Nevertheless, Verhofstadt could also have said something like ‘and I

hope that all the pro-Europeans can be united to vote ‘yes’ for the upcoming candidate

commissioner.’ This way, the ‘forces’ and the ‘beating’ would have been left out. By including these

words and thereby introducing this fighting metaphor, Verhofstadt implies that there is a strong

rivalry between the two groups and he doesn’t simply want to win the elections, he wants to beat his

opponents. This can easily be interpreted as a sign of an anti-anti-European attitude, to say the least.

Finally, Verhofstadt also uses journey metaphors. Fragments (20) and (29) are some good examples

of this.

(29) Parliament urged European leaders many times to end the standstill on Europe, to

move forward, to quit protectionism and nationalism (…) (5V)

The journey metaphors in fragments (20) and (29) contribute to Verhofstadt’s perceived pro-

European attitude, because they presuppose two things: there is a goal or direction and the way

forward = the way to an ideal Europe. The fact that these metaphors presuppose these pro-European

things contribute to Verhofstadt’s perceived pro-European attitude. Moreover, nationalism/anti-

Europeanism is framed as ‘standstill’ contributes to Verhofstadt’s anti-anti-European attitude.

To wrap up this section, it is good to shortly compare the metaphor use of both politicians. Table (1)

gives a rough overview.

22

(Table 1)

Health Building Journey

Farage Pro-European = sickness Nation-states = patients Euro = dying and killing

Pro-European = destruction EU = a prison that is undemocratically designed by a designer Nation-states = strong fundament for cooperation Euro = misconstruction

Pro-European decisions = course to the iceberg Pro-European ideology = (fake) dream destination

Verhofstadt Europe = alive, sick, in need of a heart/care Nation-states = organs

Europe = building Conventions/treaties = fundaments Euro = generating energy as long as it is stable

Pro-European decisions = moving forwards (More) centralised European power = direction/destination Nationalism = standstill

Table (1) shows that there is not one single overlap in how Farage and Verhofstadt present European

entities/things within their metaphor use. However, it is interesting to see that both politicians use

roughly the same source domains to bring their points across. This is in line with the claims by

Musolff (2004), presented in section 2.2.1.

3.3.2 Personal pronouns; who is we?


To show how the use of ‘we’ contributes to an anti- or pro-European attitude, the referents of

occurrences of ’we’ are determined by interpreting them in their context. As Cramer (2010, p. 623)

states, it is impossible to know the referents of personal pronouns without knowing the context in

which a text is uttered. The results of this analysis will consist of comparisons of the referents specific

occurrences of ‘we’, refer to. To determine the referents of ‘we’, the referents of other personal

pronouns sometimes also need to be determined. Therefore these referents are also determined

when it is necessary or adding to the analysis.

23

Results

In Farage’s debate contributions, roughly three types of ‘we’ seem to be used. A ‘we’ that excludes

the European Commission/Council, a British ‘we’ and a ‘we’ that vaguely refers to ‘a European

trend’/’European history’.

Farage has a habit of explicitly excluding the Commission (and/or the Head of Commission) or Council

from the group he is in. Fragment (30) is another good example of this.

(30) I thought and hoped it was all just a bad dream, but today we have got you, Mr

Barroso. (13F)

In fragment (30), it should be noted that who is part of ‘we’ exactly is not very important (and

contextually vague). The crucial thing is that Barroso (HoC) is not a part of the in-group. In fact, in

Farage’s corpus, there is not one single occurrence of Barroso or any other Member of Commission

(or Member of Council) being part of Farage’s in-group. They are consequently excluded (mainly

within ‘you’), at least when Farage is speaking as himself (and isn’t using any sort of indirect speech

or quote).

Fragment (31) is an example of Farage also excluding the Council from his in-group.

(31) Mr President, here we are, on the edge of a financial and social disaster, and in the

room today we have the four men who were supposed to be responsible. Yet we

have listened to the dullest, most technocratic speeches I have ever heard. You are

all in denial. (12F)

In fragment (31), Farage includes the President and the listeners within the Parliament within in-

group (also by referring to ‘the room’). The only persons that cannot possibly be included within

Farage’s ‘we’ (in fragment (31)) are ‘the four men who were supposed to be responsible’, which are

four Members of Council, including the President. It is unclear where ‘you’ refers to, precisely,

although it can be assumed that ‘the four men’ are also part of the ‘you’. In fact, it seems that ‘You

are all in denial’ can be paraphrased as: ‘Everyone agreeing with those dull, technocratic speeches is

in denial’. Farage almost presents it as if it is the choice of the listener to be addressed by ‘you’ or

not. This use of ‘you’ contributes to Farage’s anti-European attitude, because ‘you’ comprises

‘everyone pro-European’ in a sentence wherein this ‘pro-Europeanness’ is framed as ‘being in denial’.

The fact that the legislative power of Europe (European Commission and European Council) is kept

out of Farage’s group makes for the fact that Farage might not want to associate himself with this

legislative power. By explicitly not including the legislative powers in his in-group, he excludes

himself from the decision-making process within the European Union. Whether this self-exclusion

(from decision-making) actively contributes to Farage’s anti-European attitude, is questionable,

because not being a part of something does not entail being totally against that thing. However, by

excluding himself from the decision-making institution, Farage does lay a solid foundation to criticise

the decision-making process and decisions further, because he can safely assume that he won’t

thereby indirectly criticise himself.

24

The second type of ‘we’ Farage uses is an in-group of Britishness. Farage only uses this type very

sporadically, but the occurrences of it definitely seem to contribute to his perceived anti-European

attitude as well. Fragment (32) is an example of this26.

(32) Mr President, this point is often made, namely that a country like Britain is only 62

million people and are we not better off being part of a big European club so that we

can have more of a voice on the world stage? (4F second part)

In fragment (32), ‘we’ cannot refer to ‘a big European club’, so it probably refers to ‘British people’

(Farage included). The interesting point about this use of ‘we’ is that fragment (32) is pointed at

another Member of Parliament (through addressing the President of Parliament27), who happens to

be a Brit too (Andrew Duff), just like Farage himself. This use of British ‘we’ can be explained as

contributing to an anti-pro-European attitude, because it focusses on Britishness (individual nation)

instead of Europe as one entity (which is a rather pro-European strife)28.

The final type of ‘we’ use by Farage is a vague one that seems to refer to European politics/European

history as a whole. Fragment (33) gives a good example of this.

(33) The difficulty is that they chose the wrong target. Monnet and Schuman decided –

and this view is shared today by Mr Barroso, Mr[nbsp ]Cohn-Bendit and others – that

it was the existence of the nation state that led to war and therefore we had to

abolish the nation state. Actually, what we should have focused on, post-1945, was

not the abolition of states (…) (8F)

It is hardly possible to pinpoint the exact referents of the two occurrences of ‘we’ in fragment (33). It

can be argued that the first ‘we’ is retraceable to ‘Monnet and Schuman’ and does not actually

include Farage himself. Then, the interpretation is that ‘we’ is to be interpreted within indirect

speech, within the ‘decision of Monnet and Schuman’29. The second ‘we’, however, is even more

vague than the first one. Namely, Farage could not have been a part of the post-1945 Europeans,

because he was only born in 1964, but still Farage is giving an alternative to what is done: ‘what ‘we’

should have done’. Fragment (34) shows another occurrence of this ‘European historical ‘we’’.

(34) We may have made one of the biggest stupidest collective mistakes in history by

getting so worrying about global warming. (2F)

Again, it is impossible to interpret this ‘we’ as if Farage is actively a part of it, because Farage has

always been sceptical of climate change, so he never actually made the ‘mistake’. In fragments (33)

and (34), the effect of this odd use of ‘we’ seems to be that Farage presents himself as a victim of the

general will/general opinion; this is/was common sense, so he cannot have thought otherwise. By

26

Fragment (19) in the metaphor section is also a striking example. 27

Addressing the President of Parliament seems to be a convention within the European Parliament. 28

An objection against this interpretation of the ‘we’ in fragment (32) could be that Farage possibly always includes his addressee in his in-group, just as long as that addressee isn’t part of the European Commission/Council. However, this is not the case. Namely, in debate contributions 11F and 18F, in which Farage addresses the Greek and Hungarian Prime Ministers, respectively, his addressees are both not included in Farage’s in-group. 29

The fact that Monnet and Schuman ‘decided’ upon a fact, according to Farage, also blurs the line between reality and fantasy, because you technically cannot make something true by deciding it is true.

25

using ‘we’ in this way, Farage implicitly points at the inevitability/self-evidence of collective ideology.

In fragment (33), this seems to contribute to his perceived anti-European attitude, because it gives

the impression that ‘abolishing the nation state = solution’ was the only correct, common sense

thought to think, which in turn implies that it was ‘not done’ to think critically on pro-European ideas.

This agitation against the inevitability of ‘pro-European common sense’ also seems to be in line with

the implications of Farage’s metaphors that pro-European ideas are ‘deep rooted’, ‘ill-conceived’ and

based on ‘rotten’ fundamentals.

Now, we will turn to Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns. Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns

and the way it might contribute to his perceived pro-European attitude seems to be less complex

than Farage’s case. Verhofstadt’s use of ‘we’ is often less vague than Farage’s use of ‘we’, because

the context often points at the referents of ‘we’. Fragment (35) is a good example of this.

(35) However, we have also made mistakes ourselves. I think the most important error –

and we have to recognise this today, before the Greek Presidency – was made in

December 2009 by not immediately backing Greece (…) (11V)

In fragment (35), ‘we’ can only refer to the whole Parliament (including Verhofstadt himself) and the

Commission. Namely, the decision/error ‘not to immediately back Greece’ was a decision that was

made on a European level, meaning that both the European Parliament and (ultimately) the

Commission have had their influence on that decision. So, in fragment (35), Verhofstadt associates

himself with the Commission. This inclusion of the Commission is crucially different from Farage’s

personal pronoun use, who does not include the Commission.

There are even instances in the corpus in which Verhofstadt addresses ‘you’ (HoC), while he includes

that ‘you’ within his own in-group in the same sentence. Fragment (36) shows this.

(36) Secondly – and there was not enough of this in your vision of the future – we need a

more integrated Eurozone (…) (2V)

While addressing something that was missing or lacking the vision of Verhofstadt’s addressee (HoC),

Verhofstadt still manages to keep the addressee within his own in-group. Fragment (36) implies that

basically everyone, including Barroso (HoC) needs ‘a more integrated Eurozone’. There are also

sporadic occurrences of Verhofstadt excluding his addressee from his in-group. When he does so, it

seems to be the case that only Verhofstadt and his fraction is within the in-group. Fragment (37) is a

clear example of this.

(37) I want to tell you that we fully back the content of that letter. (9V)

Fragment (37) can impossibly be interpreted the same way as fragment (36). Namely, if the

addressee (‘you’) would have been part of the in-group, that would mean that that addressee

already backs the content of that letter, leaving no reason for Verhofstadt to tell him that. Here, ‘we’

probably refers to ALDE, Verhofstadt’s group in the Parliament.

Besides ‘ALDE’ and ‘the whole Parliament and Commission’, Verhofstadt also creates other in-groups.

He sometimes excludes ‘Eurosceptics’ and he often uses a very inclusive ‘we’, of which the whole of

Europe could be a part. Fragment (38) shows this eurosceptics exclusion.

26

(38) Then we would lose this election, Mr Barroso.

(2 sentences in between)

In a way the Eurosceptics are right in their criticism that this crisis has been badly

managed. They are right. (2V)

Fragment (38) is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, ‘Mr Barroso’ is not a part of Verhofstadt’s group

(ALDE), but still Verhofstadt implies that he and Barroso could win together. Secondly, the

Eurosceptics are explicitly excluded from Verhofstadt’s in-group. Both these things are related to

each other. Namely, Verhofstadt created a in-group of which only pro-Europeans can be a part

(which Barroso is, at least according to Verhofstadt).

(39) We need a post-national future for Europe. That is what we need. What we need for

Europe is not a federation of nation states: it is a federal union of European citizens.

It is about citizens and it is not about nation states in the future. (3V)

Fragment (39) shows a broad, or vague use of ‘we’ by Verhofstadt. In Farage’s case, a vague ‘we’

seems to cover up or euphemize specific entities (like in fragment (33)). In Verhofstadt’s case, this

type of vague ‘we’ also seems to cover up something. Namely, the vague ‘we’ in fragment (39) could

be covering up a pro-European presupposition: the in-group could then be described as: ‘everyone

who believes/strives for a centralised Europe’ and/or ‘Europe’. This ‘and/or’ makes it vague and

somehow tricky to pinpoint the referent.

One final use of personal pronouns by Verhofstadt, is the exclusion of single nations and/or national

governments within his in-group. Fragment (40) shows this.

(40) Finally, in Germany they need to be serious. (…) (…) either it is independent – in

which case we have no financial supervision – or it is not, in which case they can

continue to criticise Mr Draghi, as they have been doing in recent weeks. (3V)

In fragment (40), Germany is excluded from Verhofstadt’s in-group. In fact, this example shows the

essence of Verhofstadt’s pro-Europeanism: something is either part of Verhofstadt’s in-group, and

thereby is a part of the collective that decides as one, or it is not part of Verhofstadt’s in-group and

still has individual rights to decide.

Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns contribute to his perceived pro-European attitude in a

multitude of ways. He includes the European legislative power within his in-group, while he excludes

Eurosceptics and individual countries. Moreover, his strife for Europeanness is sometimes also

contained within his vague use of ‘we’ (like in fragment (39)). The problem that arose in determining

whether Farage’s personal pronoun use contributed to his perceived anti-European attitude, does

not apply in Verhofstadt’s case. Namely, not associating with something (like Farage) has less

implications than associating with something explicitly (like Verhofstadt).

In conclusion of this section, two things can be said: Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns

contributes to his perceived pro-European attitude, because he includes the Commission in his own

27

group and Farage’s use of personal pronouns is relatively (way) more anti-European than

Verhofstadt’s use of personal pronouns, because he often excludes the Commission from his own

group.

3.3.3 Modality in ‘need’ The checklist analysis showed a difference in the frequency of the use of the verb ‘need’ in

Verhofstadt’s and Farage’s speeches. Verhofstadt seemed to use ‘need’ remarkably often. In itself,

both Verhofstadts use of ‘need as well as well as Farage’s lack of use of ‘need’ does not seem to

contribute to the perceived attitudes of both politicians at first glance. However, Verhofstadt seems

to use ‘need’ in particularly pro-European contexts, wherein the ambiguity in modality in ‘need’

functions as a kind of intensifier of pro-Europeanness.

This ambiguity and its intensifying function can be explained by looking at fragment (41) by

Verhofstadt.

(41a) (…) and what Germany did when it created the Zollverein and became a modern

economy, the powerhouse of Europe in the economic field. That is also what we

need at the European level. (7V)

(41b) That is also what we want at the European level. (7V altered)

(41c) That is also what is necessary at the European level. (7V altered)

In fragment (41a), Verhofstadt is propagating a measure that can easily be explained as being pro-

European by using the context of the whole debate contribution. Verhofstadt could have chosen to

utter version (41b) or (41c) instead of (41a). Fragment (41b) focusses on the subjective nature of

Verhofstadts message; it presents what Verhofstadt wants or wishes, without giving a reason for it.

This reformulation displays the modal meaning of ‘need’. Fragment (41c), on the other hand,

focusses on what is necessary for Europe. This reformulation displays the non-modal meaning of

‘need’. The fact that fragments (41b) and (41c) are both possible reformulations of fragment (41a)

shows that ‘need’ in fragment (41a) is slightly ambiguous.

This ambiguity intensifies the pro-European message in the following way. The possible non-modal

interpretation of ‘need’ in fragment (41a) can be seen as an argument for the possible modal

interpretation of ‘need’. The argumentation then is: ‘that is what we want at the European level,

because that is what is necessary at the European level’. The ambiguity in ‘need’ makes for the fact

that fragment (41a) has a proposition and argument in one. This adds to the persuasiveness of the

(already) pro-European standpoint.

Fragments (42) shows another interesting use of ‘need’, that contributes to Verhofstadt’s perceived

pro-Europeanness in the same way as fragment (1).

(42a) We need a more integrated Eurozone. (42V)

(42b) We want a more integrated Eurozone. (42V altered)

(42c) A more integrated Eurozone is necessary for Europe. (42V altered)

28

Also in fragment (42), alternative formulation (42c) can be seen as a justification or reason behind

(42b), while (42a) contains the meaning of both (42b) and (42c): ‘we want a more integrated

Eurozone, because a more integrated Eurozone is necessary’. ‘Need’ in fragment (42a) intensifies the

pro-European standpoint due to its vagueness in modality. It has the effect that Verhofstadt’s

presented wish for a more integrated Eurozone seems self-evident and logical.

An objection that can be made against this explanation of Verhofstadt’s use of ‘need’ is the question

why Verhofstadt would not use a strictly non-modal way to express the necessities of Europe. This

way, he would totally depersonalise his standpoint, thereby making his standpoint probably look

even more persuasive. Namely, I would argue that in fragment (43), version (43b) is the more

persuasive than version (43a).

(43a) We need more labour mobility. (11V)

(43b) It is necessary to have more labour mobility. (11V altered)

However, although (43b) might be more persuasive, it does not have to contribute to Verhofstadt’s

perceived pro-European attitude, while (43a) does. Namely, reading version (b) can easily lead to the

conclusion that Verhofstadt is a pragmatist, someone who does what is necessary in a given situation

and only does so for the sake of necessity. Version (43a) might be slightly less persuasive, but the

interpretation that Verhofstadt says what he says (partly) due to his pro-European attitude remains

intact. In other words, by using the modal ambiguity in ‘need’, Verhofstadt intensifies his pro-

European utterances, while leaving his pro-European attitude apparent at the same time.

Another important notion is that almost every time Verhofstadt uses ‘need’, he does so with ‘we’ as

a subject, of which fragment (36) is an example. As discussed in section 3.3.2, his particularly open

use of ‘we’, of which basically every European entity/person can be a part, also contributes to his

perceived pro-European attitude. The clustering of these multiple stylistic features within single

sentences makes these sentences into pro-European cluster bombs. For instance, fragment (43a)

presupposes: a, that there is a unified in-group of Europeaness, b, it is necessary for Europe to have

more labour mobility, c, Verhofstadt wants Europe to have more labour mobility because of his pro-

European attitude and maybe also even d, every person within the in-group of Europeaness wants

more labour mobility.

Table (2) shows the frequencies30 of ‘need’ that work according the same mechanism as showed in

the examples above.

(Table 2) shows the frequencies in which ‘need’ collocates with ‘Europe’ (or ‘something European’). The relative frequency

shows a percentage. The absolute frequency is showed between brackets.

Farage Verhofstadt

Need 0,00* (0)31 3,33* (48)

30

The relative frequency is relative to the total amount of verb phrases and not to the total amount of words. This shows a

more precise picture, because speakers of English can only choose a finite verb once per verb phrase. 31

F: 0/1160 vs. V: 48/1440; LL = 56,72, p < 0,0001.

29

The significant difference in frequency (table (2)) in this usage of ‘need’ as a verb is totally

unremarkable. Namely, even if Farage would say something like ‘Europe needs to be abolished’, this

can possibly be interpreted as ‘for the sake of Europe, it needs to be abolished (first)’. Still, the fact

that Verhofstadt uses this construction quite often can be seen as a contributor to Verhofstadt’s

perceived pro-European attitude in general32.

This mechanism how ‘need’ intensifies Verhofstadt’s pro-European standpoints raises some

questions. How does Farage present needs of Europe and/or needs of other entities? How does

Verhofstadt present needs and necessities that are not within a pro-European context? These

questions can be answered by looking at other fragments in the corpora of both politicians.

The only time Farage used ‘need’ as a verb, this was with a nation-state as an agent/experiencer.

Fragment (44) shows this.

(44) Well, hard on the heels of the Finnish result we had the third catastrophe, the third

casualty; Mr Barroso’s own Portugal needed to be bailed out. (18F)

Fragment (44) is remarkable, because the only ‘need’ Farage used, was when he pointed at an

inevitability of a nation-state to be bailed out, instead of a need of Europe specifically. Moreover, the

context makes it clear that ‘needed’ in fragment (44) is strictly non-modal. Namely, fragment (44)

says nothing about whether Farage actually wanted Portugal to be bailed out or not. The fact that

‘needed’ in fragment (44) is non-ambiguous is different from (most of) Verhofstadt’s uses of ‘need’,

in which the modal meaning of ‘need’ is often left open as a possible interpretation. This specific

usage of ‘need’ doesn’t contribute to Farage’s perceived anti-European attitude, but it does show

that the one time Farage used ‘need’, he used it in a different way than Verhofstadt.

In this light, one other fragment of Farage’s debate contributions that is interesting to look at is

fragment (45). This is not an occurrence of ‘need’, but it is Farage’s reformulation of what

Verhofstadt (and others) said before it was Farage’s turn to speak (cf. fragment (41) by Verhofstadt,

which is part of the same debate).

(45a) You said Europe is not working so we must have more Europe: more of the same

failing. (7F)

(45b) You said Europe is not working so we need more Europe: more of the same failing.

(7F altered)

In fragment (45a), Farage is reframing what Verhofstadt (and others) said in fragment (41) by using

indirect speech (‘you said’) and he is probably trying to ridicule the standpoint that was brought

forward. By using ‘must’ instead of ‘need’, Farage explicitly deletes the non-modal meaning of the

sentence. While ‘need’ would have entailed that something is necessary for Europe, ‘must’ entails

that it is just the opinion or wish of the speaker (more strictly modal). The fact that Farage reframed

Verhofstadt’s words in this way further enforces the conclusion that ‘need’ does in fact contribute to

intensification of Verhofstadt’s pro-European standpoint. If Farage would have uttered (45b), there

32

An objection to this conclusion could be that all 48 occurrences could have been uttered in a small amount of debate contributions in a high density. A quick, statistically informal look at the density, however, suggests that all 48 occurrences are fairly spread out across all debate contributions. In fact, the debate contributions in which this construction is not used are a minority. This issue will be further discussed in the discussion.

30

would be more focus on ridiculing the reasoning of the person he quoted, while (45a) focusses more

on ridiculing the pro-European attitude of the person he quoted.

Going back to Verhofstadt, Verhofstadt also displays necessities of other entities than Europe.

However, he tends to use ‘have to’ instead of ‘need’ when this is the case.

(46a) (…) we are still in the middle of a deep crisis and we have to recognise that when we

discuss the State of the Union today. (3V)

(46b) (…) we are still in the middle of a deep crisis and it is necessary that we recognise that

when we discuss the State of the Union today. (3V altered)

(46c) *(…) we are still in the middle of a deep crisis and we want (us) to recognise that

when we discuss the State of the Union today. (3V altered)

Fragment (46) is an occurrence of Verhofstadt saying that something is necessary which is not in the

context of a pro-European message. Version (46c) is not a possible reformulation of (46a). This

suggests that ‘have to’ cannot have a modal meaning, or at least only a less modal meaning. It is

interesting to see that Verhofstadt does not use ‘have to’ in a specifically pro-European context, but

also does not use ‘need’ in instances like fragment (46). This seems to point towards the idea that

Verhofstadt uses ‘need’ mainly for his special pro-European occasions, to intensify the pro-European

message.

Finally, it should be said that I have barely found any occurrence of Farage actually claiming that

something is necessary or that he wants something to happen. Farage is either rather

descriptive/predictive about what he thinks ‘will’ happen, or he displays his hopes about the future.

However, fragment (47) is a short example of both such a prediction by using ‘will’, as well as the

necessity Farage sometimes displays.

(47) You know I have to accept that you now have the whip hand over the citizens of

Europe and I now think that this euro crisis will go on for a whole miserable decade.

(3F)

This necessity through ‘have to’ is of a different kind that Verhofstadt uses. Namely, it focusses on

the fact that Farage (along with ‘the citizens of Europe’) necessarily has to undergo the power of the

European Commission. While Verhofstadt presents necessities that can/must be acted upon,

Farage’s necessity showed in fragment (47) is actually more an inevitability in disguise. This necessity

of ‘undergoing’ that citizens have to stand through, according to Farage, seems to fit Farage’s use of

metaphors and his ‘historical we’, as discussed in sections 3.3.1 and 3.3.2. This will also be further

discussed in the following section on word choice.

3.3.4 Word choice: creating pro-/anti-European semantic categories The second stylistic feature that was discovered by using the checklist and that could contribute to a

perceived anti- or pro-European attitude is word choice. Namely, as shown in the theoretical

framework in section 2.1.1, different words can create a different construal of the same situation.

While checking the debate contributions with the checklist, it became apparent that Farage and

Verhofstadt used specific words in a way that were typical to themselves (compared to the other

31

politician). Some of the words specifically used by one or the other politician seem to construe

representations of reality that have particular anti- or pro-European evaluations, which could in turn

contribute to the perceived anti- or pro-European attitudes of both politicians.


The practical definition of wat a word is within a (written33) discourse is considered to be

unproblematic and therefore not further discussed. The analysis itself consists of a frequency analysis

of the words specific to both politicians and a qualitative assessment of what the presented

differences in word choices could mean for an anti- or pro-European attitude. In other words, the

evaluations of the specific words are discussed.

Farage used multiple words significantly more than Verhofstadt does. Some of these words seem to

have an anti-European evaluation. Farage’s typical words that will be discussed in this section are:

‘nation-state’/’nation’, nation names (e.g. the word ‘Germany’), ‘democracy‘, ‘people’ and ‘citizen’,

and ‘of course’. Verhofstadt used less words that seem to have a specific pro-European evaluation.

Verhofstadt’s typical that were found are ‘lack’ and ‘crisis’.

The general criteria for including occurrences of most of these words in the (quantitative) analysis

are pretty straightforward: all inflections of the words are included and when a specific word is part

of a name, it is not included. (E.g. ‘United Nations’ = not included, ‘nationalism’ = included,

democratic = included, Democracy Party = not included.) For the category of nation names, only the

first criterion applies to all individual nation names. (E.g. ‘the French’ = included, ‘Germany’ =

included.) For ‘of course’, specific criteria are used, which will be described when Farage’s use of ‘of

course’ is discussed.

Results

The first category that is discussed is the category of nouns (A2) and especially the way Farage refers

to outlined pieces of land by using nouns (and/or inflected nominal stems).

(Table 3) Frequencies of nations names and the words ‘nation-state’/’nation’ and ‘country in each politician’s corpus. The

relative frequency is the percentage relative to the total word count of each corpus. The absolute frequencies are shown

between brackets.

Farage Verhofstadt

nation name 1,035* (104)34 0,592* (82)

‘nation-state’/’nation’ 0,32* (32)35 0,14* (19)

‘country’ 0,30 (30) 0,22 (30)

Total: 1,65* (166)36 0,95* (131)

Table (3) shows multiple interesting things about Farage’s ways to refer to an outlined piece of land,

compared to the way in which Verhofstadt does this. Nations/countries have a prominent place in

Farage’s debate contributions, as the bottom row of table (3) shows. This can contribute to Farage’s

perceived anti-European attitude, because by mentioning nations or countries often, he focusses on

33

Transcripts. 34

F: 104/10044 vs. V: 82/13835; LL = 14.40, p < 0,001. 35

F: 32/10044 vs. V: 19/13835; LL = 8.82; p < 0,01. 36

F: 166/10044 vs. V: 131/13835; LL = 22.92; p < 0,0001.

32

the individual parts of the European Union37 and not particularly on the unity of the whole European

Union. Also, when Farage said ‘nation-state’/’nation’, he could also have said ‘country’ instead. I

would argue that ‘country’ has lesser implications for the identity of a specific piece of land (and its

citizens) than ‘nation’ has. In fact, Longman Online Dictionary (2017) and Macmillan Online

Dictionary (2017) mention a (social/economic) link between a people and its land in the definition of

‘nation’. This is not mentioned in the definition of ‘country’. So, by calling ‘countries’ ‘nations’ (or by

their name), Farage implicitly addresses the diversity and differences these nations have, which

opposes the idea of one European identity. This might contribute to his perceived anti-European

attitude, at least if you interpret ‘European’ as striving to be one entity.

The following set of nouns that stood out in Farage’s corpus refer to the persons living in Europe

and/or the way they can influence European politics.

(Table 4) Frequencies of the words ‘democracy‘ and ‘citizen’/’people’ in each politician’s corpus. ‘citizen’/’people’ shows

only the frequency of those words referring to ‘persons living in Europe’. The relative frequency is the percentage relative

to the total word count of each corpus. The absolute frequencies are shown between brackets.

Table (4) shows that Farage uses the words ‘citizens’/’people’ and ‘democracy‘ significantly more

than Verhofstadt does. For ‘citizen’/’people’ and ‘democracy‘, the link with a perceived anti-

European attitude is less evident on first sight, but can be explained in a more indirect way.

Namely, by saying ‘democracy’ (or ‘democratic), Farage focusses on the way/manner in which

political decisions are made, instead of addressing the content of the particular decision. Instead of

giving his opinion on a specific topic, on the basis of which a centralised European decision could be

made, he only gives the criterion of how good40 decisions come to being. Constantly presenting this

criterion (democracy) gives two impressions: the criterion is not met, and any opinion (including his

own) is largely irrelevant as long as the criterion of democracy is not met.

It should be noted that context is not very relevant here, because even if the content of a specific

standpoint would steer towards centralised European action, mentioning the ‘democratic’ nature of

the realisation of that standpoint would distract from the content itself. Even if Verhofstadt would

say that he adores the democratic nature of the European Union when speaking in the European

Parliament, that will inevitably be a side-note that is irrelevant to the topic that is being addressed,

unless that topic is democracy itself4142.

37

Only one occurrence of a nation name is a non-EU country (in debate 6F). 38

F: 45/10044 vs. V: 5/13835; LL = 50.89; p < 0,0001. 39

F: 52/10044 vs. V: 20/13835; LL = 26.82, p < 0,0001. 40

This is, of course, subjective. 41

In the European Parliament, the topic of debate is established beforehand. 42

In fact, 2 out of 5 occurrences of Verhofstadt using the word ‘democracy‘ are from two debates that indirectly address the topic of democracy in the European Union (debate contributions 9 and 10 by both politicians). Farage uses ‘democracy’ 8 times in those debate contributions specifically.

Farage Verhofstadt

‘democracy‘ 0,45* (45)38 0,04* (5)

‘citizen’/’people’ 0,52* (52)39 0,14* (20)

33

So, by mentioning ‘democracy’, Farage distracts from actual decision-making at a central, European

level and he implicitly points at the irrelevant/unjust nature of the Parliament, which seems to

contribute to his perceived anti-European attitude, because it interferes with European decision-

making within that Parliament.

Farage’s frequency of the use of the words ‘citizen’/’people’ also contributes to a split/distraction,

roughly in the same way as ‘democracy’ does. Namely, in essence, the European Parliamentarians

are (indirect) representatives of the persons living in Europe. So, strictly speaking, in a debate in the

European Parliament, the persons living in Europe are irrelevant, because Farage already represents

(a part) of them by holding a chair in the European Parliament. Fragment (48) is a good example of

this.

(48a) (…) and I am sure the citizens of Europe will all clap and cheer loudly that the grave

mortal danger of olive oil in dipping bowls has been removed by the officials. (14F)

(48b) (…) and we will all clap and cheer loudly that the grave mortal danger of olive oil in

dipping bowls has been removed by the officials.(14F altered)

The crucial difference between (48a) and (48b) is that in (48b), the use of ‘we’ would implicitly

acknowledge that Farage is speaking in the name of others, which he actually is, given the fact that

he is an (indirect) representative of the people, while in (48a), this representative-relationship is not

present. Thereby, (48a) gives the impression that the actions of ‘the citizens of Europe’ are to be

taken into account to a larger degree than Farage’s actual degree of representation (the amount of

chairs he and his group hold in the Parliament) would imply. This use of ‘citizens’ seems to contribute

to Farage’s perceived anti-European attitude in the sense that it shows a defiance of the European

political (representatives) system.

In terms of construal: there is a situation in which indirect representatives of the citizens can decide

upon a specific topic by debating. By constantly mentioning the ‘citizens’, Farage focusses on

something that is not inside the frame of the topic or the (parliamentary) situation.Thereby, using

‘citizen’/’people’ contributes to complexification and defiance of the system behind centralised

European decision-making as it is done now.

Moving to checklist category A5 (adverbs), the final word that seems to contribute to Farage’s anti-

European attitude is the word ‘of course’, in a specific way in which Farage often uses it. Fragment

(49) shows this.

(49a) All democracy is to be vested here under what you call the community method,

which of course means your unelected commission has the sole right to present that

legislation. (3F)

(49b) All democracy is to be vested here under what you call the community method,

which means your unelected commission has the sole right to present that

legislation. (3F altered)

In fragment (49a), ‘of course’ adds to the idea that what Farage said, is something that is no surprise.

A conclusion that can be drawn from (49a) is that it can always be expected from ‘you’ (HoC,

Barroso) that ‘you’ will strive to get an ‘unelected commission that has the sole right to present that

34

legislation’. For fragment (49b) this is no possible conclusion. From a listener’s perspective, this

conclusion can lead to another conclusion, which is that Farage always expects the HoC to strive to

get an ‘unelected commission that has the sole right to present that legislation’. So, the use of ‘of

course’ in fragment (49a) implicitly displays Farage’s attitude/expectations on how he thinks the

European Commission will always act. Although both versions implicitly evaluate the European

Commission negatively43, the crucial difference between fragments (49a) and (49b) is that (49a)

shows that Farage would not expect the European Commission to act any different than they do. The

display of his negative expectations might very well contribute to his perceived anti-European

attitude. Fragment (50) is another striking occurrence of this usage of ‘of course’.

(50a) (…) but today we have got you, Mr Barroso. You begin of course by reiterating the

fact that the free movement of peoples is the embodiment of the European project.

You then go on to say that it is the duty of Member States to share the burdens of

migratory flows into Europe. You advocate a common EU immigration policy, but of

course you know that you are losing (…) (13F)

(50b) (…) but today we have got you, Mr Barroso. You begin by reiterating the

fact that the free movement of peoples is the embodiment of the European project.

You then go on to say that it is the duty of Member States to share the burdens of

migratory flows into Europe. You advocate a common EU immigration policy, but you

know that you are losing (…) (13F altered)

Fragment (50b) could be interpreted as if it were strictly a description of Barroso’s speech. In

fragment (50a), the use of ‘of course’ adds an evaluation to the description. Basically, Farage is

claiming that ‘reiterating the fact (…)’ is something that Barroso typically does and that ‘knowing that

he is losing’ is also a typical feature of Barroso. In doing so, Farage ridicules and questions the

logicality behind Barroso’s typical strives/ways. Again, ‘of course’ does not make fragment (50a)

more negative or ironical as a whole, but ‘of course’ does introduce the notion that what Farage said,

is in line with his expectations. This display of negative expectations probably contributes to Farage’s

perceived anti-European attitude. Table (5) shows the frequencies of ‘of course’ in both corpora. It

should be said that most (18 out of 22) occurrences of ‘of course’ in Farage’s corpus have an effect

along the same lines as in fragments (49) and (50).

(Table 5) Frequency of the word ‘of course’ in each politician’s corpus.

Turning to Verhofstadt, the frequencies of Verhofstadt’s supposedly pro-European nouns are shown

in table (6).

43

Dependent on how one would evaluate ‘sole legislation’. 44

F: 22/10044 vs. V: 0/13835; LL = 38.11; p < 0,0001.

Farage Verhofstadt

‘of course’ 0,22* (22)44 0* (0)

35

(Table 6) Frequencies of the words ‘crisis’ and ‘lack’. The relative frequencies are percentages relative to the total word

count of each corpus. The absolute frequencies are shown between brackets.

Farage Verhofstadt

‘crisis’ 0,06* (6)45 0,51* (70)

‘lack’ 0,00* (0)46 0,09* (12)

In Verhofstadt’s debate contributions, ‘crisis’ is a recurring theme. It should be said that all

occurrences of crisis directly or indirectly refer to a ‘European crisis’. This word choice seems to

contribute to a perceived pro-European attitude, because of the evaluations it has. Namely, when

something is in a crisis, that something also seems one unified thing. Sharing a common enemy often

brings people together (at least for as long as the common enemy exists). In Verhofstadt’s debate

contributions, this common enemy is the ‘crisis’. Fragment (51) is a good example of ‘crisis’ as a

common enemy to act upon.

(51) We expect a Commission with ambition, a Commission with vision, a Commission

that can lead us out of the crisis. (9V)

In fragment (51), ‘crisis’ can be seen as a key word in the whole sentence. The ‘crisis’ is the big reason

why the Commission should act (‘lead us out of it’).

It is striking that the word ‘crisis’ is hardly mentioned in Farage’s debate contributions, because

Farage and Verhofstadt were talking about roughly the same situation (in general, the time period

from 2010 to 2016). Verhofstadt chose to address the crisis part of the situation; Farage did not. Only

in some metaphors (as discussed in section 3.3.1; e.g. ‘EU-Titanic’), Farage implicitly addressed the

situation that Verhofstadt called ‘crisis’.

Another Verhofstadt specific noun is ‘lack’. Fragment (52) shows how ‘lack’ makes the relation

between ‘crisis’ and acting upon that crisis explicit.

(52) (…) the source and origin of every one of these crises is in fact exactly the same: it is a

lack of common governance; it is a lack of shared sovereignty. It is the lack of unity in

Europe that is the cause of the crisis. (7V)

A possible evaluation of fragment (52) could be that fixing the ‘lacks’ of Europe could prevent other

crises and maybe solve the ‘current47’ crisis. Also note how the use of ‘lack’ and ‘crisis’ probably

interact with Verhofstadt’s use of modality (as discussed in section 3.3.3; e.g. through ‘need’).

One final point that can be said about Verhofstadt’s word choice is one in which Farage and

Verhofstadt do not seem to differ quantitatively, but in the specific usage of the word(s). Namely,

Verhofstadt brings forward concepts of sameness, shared and common features (like in fragment

(52): ‘shared’, ‘unity’, ‘common’). Verhofstadt and Farage use certain words in roughly the same

frequency, but when Verhofstadt uses them, he is speaking as himself (like in fragment (52),

45

F: 6/10044 vs. V: 70/13835; LL = 44.82, p < 0,0001. 46

F: 0/10044 vs. V: 12/13835; LL = 13.10, p < 0,001. 47

At the time of the debate.

36

‘common governance’, while Farage uses them in indirect speech. Fragment (53) is a good example

of this (by Farage).

(53) You talked about the need for a common foreign policy and security policy. You

talked about the need for a common energy policy. (10F)

In fragment (53), Farage is only indirectly quoting a pro-European debate contribution. The quoted

debate contribution could very well be one of Verhofstadt.

3.3.5 Evaluative nature: past tense vs. present tense Another stylistic feature that was discovered by using the checklist and that could contribute to a

perceived anti- or pro-European attitude is the use of tense. Namely, Farage’s debate contributions

often seemed to be more evaluative (checklist category A1), while Verhofstadt’s debate

contributions seemed to be more proposing/urging. This difference could contribute to the media

judgements of both politicians about their perceived anti- or pro-European attitudes.


The definition of past tense is fairly straightforward. There is no debate about what a past tense

looks like in a sentence: a finite verb with a past tense morpheme that shows agreement with the

subject of the sentence it is in. For this part of the research, some striking occurrences of past tense

are discussed48. This can function as a foundation for what the frequency of past tenses in both

corpora might say about the attitudes of both politicians in general. The presented frequencies at the

end of this section exclude the past tenses in a construction with a modal auxiliary. The frequency of

past tense was established by making use of an automated word tagger49.

Results

Before discussing the actual analysis, it must be said that this part of the research is slightly different

in content and structure than the parts on other stylistic features. The underlying claim of this part of

the analysis is that a difference in frequency of the use of past tense is an (indirect) reflection of the

anti- and pro-European attitudes of both politicians; a result. In other words, the crucial claim here is

that ‘anti-European content’ asks for a past tense construction more than ‘pro-European content’

does.

Farage seems to use more past tense. By the use of the past tense, Farage is enabled to focus on past

events. This focus seems to have an effect on the possible evaluations of what Farage says. This

effect can be explained by using fragment (53)50 as an example.

(53a) It was a great liberation for us and of course once having been bitten we didn't join

the euro project thank goodness. Sadly the same is not true for the rest of Europe

and I thought through the last 18 months or so that the economic logic of why Britain

left the ERM would apply particular to those Mediterranean countries and I foresaw

48

While the checklist category B6 speaks of ‘significant departures from the use of the simple past tense’ (Leech & Short, 2007, p. 61), the interesting parts for this particular research are departures from the simple present tense, since the simple present tense seems to be used most of the time by both politicians. 49

Stanford POS Tagger. This tagger has an accuracy of roughly 95%. The output of the tagger was corrected manually. Cf. appendix 6. 50

Note that certain words are barred, because they interact with the verb tenses in a way that is impossible or very weird with present tense.

https://nlp.stanford.edu/software/tagger.shtml

37

that actually those countries would leave the eurozone, probably with Greece leaving

this year. (3F)

(53b) It is a great liberation for us and of course once having been bitten we do not join the

euro project thank goodness. Sadly the same is not true for the rest of Europe and I

think through the last 18 months or so that the economic logic of why Britain leaves

the ERM will apply particular to those Mediterranean countries and I foresee that

actually those countries will leave the eurozone, probably with Greece leaving this

year. (3F altered)

Fragments (53a) and (53b) show a past tense Farage used getting a more optimistic, call-to-action

like evaluation when formulated as a present tense. The evaluations of both versions differ

drastically. Fragment (53a) can be interpreted as if Farage is just describing things, telling a factual

story51. Fragment (53b), on the other hand, has implications for future action. It is Farage declaring

that ‘we do not join’ and him ‘foreseeing’ a specific future. In (53a), the past tense limits these

evaluations of a future situation. Fragment (54) shows a similar effect of the use of past tense.

(54a) When the EU put the constitution to the peoples of Europe – the first time it really

came clean with the electors – they rejected it. (8F)

(54b) When the EU puts the constitution to the peoples of Europe – the first time it really

comes clean with the electors – they reject it. (8F altered)

Again, fragment (54b) can be interpreted as a counterproposal to actually accept ‘it’. Fragment (54a)

is only a description of a situation in the past (which has a very evaluative nature). Fragments (60)

and (54) show that using past tense can contribute to an anti-European attitude, because it makes

for the fact that no future action can be a logical next step; the damage is done.

On the other hand, Verhofstadt seems to use more present tense. This could contribute to his

perceived pro-European attitude. Fragment (55) and the discussion of it gives an impression of how

this could work.

(55a) Mr Samaras, although it is perhaps cynical to say this, you are in a quite unique

position. You are now in the Greek Presidency, and you can apply all the lessons you

learned in Greece to reforming the European Union. You are in the best position to

tell your colleagues that they should not make the same mistakes and that they need

to create a Banking Union. You know what the consequences are of a lack of

European union and a lack of unity. (11V)

(55b) Mr Samaras, although it is perhaps cynical to say this, you were in a quite unique

position. You were in the Greek Presidency, and you could have applied all the

lessons you learned in Greece to reforming the European Union. You were in the best

position to tell your colleagues that they should not make the same mistakes and

that they needed to create a Banking Union. You knew what the consequences

were of a lack of European union and a lack of unity. (11V altered)

51

Which is probably why past tense considered to be the regular tense in fiction (cf. note 48).

38

Example (55a) is clearly an appeal to the possibilities that Mr Samaras has to change and move

forward with Europe (‘create a Banking Union’). It discusses what Samaras could do (and probably

‘should’ do as well, if Verhofstadt would be asked). Example (55b) on the other hand, is completely

shifted towards an evaluative accusation of everything Samaras did wrong. In other words, in this

case, the past tense would have limited Verhofstadt to steer towards future action, while vice versa,

the present tense enabled him to do so. Fragment (56) is another example of this idea.

(56a) But what we are seeing today is more of a deep political crisis. Everybody is talking

about public finances, about interest rates, about economics. In my opinion it is not

about Greece, it is not about the public finances, it is not even about economics as

being the fallout of the crisis. The real nature of this crisis is a political one and that is

the political incapacity today to make the jump forward to a federal union and, more

precisely, the incapacity of the national elites of Europe to make this jump to a more

federal union in Europe. That is the real crisis we are going through today. (3V)

(56b) But what we were seeing was more of a deep political crisis. Everybody was talking

about public finances, about interest rates, about economics. In my opinion it was

not about Greece, it was not about the public finances, it was not even about

economics as being the fallout of the crisis. The real nature of this crisis was a

political one and that was the political incapacity to make the jump forward to a

federal union and, more precisely, the incapacity of the national elites of Europe to

make this jump to a more federal union in Europe. That was the real crisis we were

going through. (3V altered)

It is easy to see that (56b) is a reflection on the past, without inherent need for action at present

times. (56a) is actually alarming and does call for action. Thereby the use of present tense is a crucial

factor in how Verhofstadt appears to be a driving pro-European force. Table (7) shows the

frequencies of the use of past tense in both corpora.

(Table 7) Frequencies of past tense. The relative frequency shows a percentage. The relative frequency is relative to the

total amount of verb phrases and not to the total amount of words. This shows a better picture, because in English, a

speaker can only choose one finite verb per verb phrase. The absolute frequencies are shown between brackets.

Farage Verhofstadt

Past tense 18,53* (215)52 11,53* (166)

Although the statistics (table (7)) on this topic are more background information than actual analysis,

they are at least a steady background. Namely, Farage uses way more (significantly more) past tense

than Verhofstadt does. The interpretation of these numbers is tricky. An hypothesis for further

research could be that saying anti-European things in a contemporary way asks for the use of past

tense (and vice versa with pro-European things). In that interpretation, there is not that much of a

(pro-/anti-European) stylistic choice involved; the pro-/anti-European things someone might want to

say only limit his options from which one can choose. If that hypothesis is true, it would explain the

frequencies in table (7).

52

F: 215/1160c vs. V: 166/1440; LL = 21.36, p < 0,0001.

39

3.3.6 Evaluative nature: intensifiers While checking on categories A1 and A3, the focus of me as an analyst was directed towards the

‘evaluativeness’ of words (and adjectives, more specifically). This focus led me towards taking

intensifiers into account, because intensifier use also seems to add to the evaluative nature of

sentences. Farage seems to use more intensifiers than Verhofstadt.


Roughly, intensifiers are linguistic features of a text that express language intensity. Language

intensity is ‘the quality of language which indicates the degree to which the speaker’s attitude

toward a concept deviates from neutrality’ (Bowers, 1963, p. 345).

More specifically, the used definitions and precise operationalisations of the term

intensifier/language intensity has been all but uniform53 since it was first mentioned by Osgood in

1959 (Liebrecht, 2015, p. 12). The least that can be said with some certainty is that intensifiers do

actually contribute to the perceived intensity of language (Van Mulken & Schellens, 2012, Burgers &

De Graaf, 2013). A recurring theme in the definition of language intensity and/or intensifiers is the

degree of subjectivity in identifying an intensifier. Fragment (57) illustrates this.

(57a) Carrot cake tastes like shit.

(57b) Carrot cake tastes bad.

In (57a), ‘like shit’ would be identified as an intensifier, according to most approaches. Not only is

(57a) more intense than (57b) (relative intensity) according to almost all research on the topic, ‘like

shit’ is also often considered to be an intensifier by itself (in the context of ‘taste’), regardless of any

alternative formulations. However, the underlying question if the sentence accurately describes the

reality it claims to describe will always be subjective. Namely, the person that uttered (57a) could

deny that fragment (57b) is an accurate description of reality: ‘carrot cake tastes like shit, not just

bad’. This argument can then be countered by saying that ‘like shit’ is still a more intense language

unit than ‘bad’. However, this can then be countered again by saying that only the reality fragment

(57a) describes is more intense than the described reality in fragment (57b), while the intensity of

the utterances is the same for both sentences.

Van Mulken & Schellens (2012, p. 28 – 29) partially tackle this problem. They limit the term

intensifier to only occur in evaluative sentences. They define an intensifier as ‘an element in an

evaluative utterance that can be deleted or replaced, with a grammatically correct utterance as a

result that is contextually relevant and expresses a less intense evaluation’ (Van Mulken & Schellens

2012, p. 29). In this definition, ‘intensifiers encompass all stylistic[/linguistic] means an

author/speaker can use to enforce his utterance’(Van Mulken & Schellens 2012, p. 48).

53

E.g. as a feature that conveys intensity through emotionality and specificity (Hamilton, Hunter & Burgoon, 1990), as a formulation that can be weakened (Renkema, 1997) or as an enforcement of an argument (Pander Maat, 2004, p. 210). Liebrecht (2015, p. 10 – 36) gives a good overview of all used definitions and operationalisations through the years in different fields of research.

40

An effect of intensifiers that seems a bit underexposed54 is the idea that intensifiers do not only

enforce the evaluation of an utterance, but also enforce and/or mark the fact that an evaluative

utterance has been uttered. Fragment (58) and the discussion of it is an example of the usage of all

aspects of this definition.

(58a) This parliament is the complete antithesis of democracy.

(58b) This parliament is not democratic.

Fragment (58b) has the same contextual relevance as (58a) and the replacement (underlined) keeps

the sentence syntactically correct, while its evaluation is less intense. Moreover, fragment (58a) is

more recognizable as an evaluation or opinion, while (58b) could more easily be interpreted as

merely a factual statement.

Although the definition by Van Mulken & Schellens (2012, p. 28 – 29) with the short addition

mentioned above still has subjective elements (‘contextually relevant’, ‘evaluation’, ‘enforce’), the

restraint of grammatical correctness is a non-subjective restraint. In this research, all intensifiers are

identified as being an intensifier according to this definition. Since an analysis of intensifiers could be

a possible research topic for a whole thesis on its own, only adjectival, adverbial and nominal

intensifiers are analysed in this research (intensifiers that fall into the syntactic category of

adjectives, adverbs or nouns55). The results of this part of the research will comprise a quantitative

part (amount of intensifiers in both corpora) and a qualitative part that shows how specific

occurrences within the corpora contribute to the perceived attitudes.

There is a multitude of studies that links the use of intensifiers to different macro level phenomena.

Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 45 – 88) links the use of intensifiers by Dutch politician Geert Wilders with the

media judgement about Geert Wilders that he speaks in a very clear way (not in terms of

pronunciation, but in terms of language use). The mechanism behind this is that the use of a lot of

intensifiers places the content on the outer sides of an evaluative scale and thereby it is (or seems)

free of nuances. This makes it easier to know Wilders’ position on the debated topics. Other research

links the use of intensifiers to sensationalism (Burgers & De Graaf, 2013), trustworthiness and

likeness of the source (Hamilton & Hunter, 1998, p. 121).

For this research, intensifier use seems relevant in two ways. Firstly, the frequency of intensifiers

seem to contribute to the evaluative nature (and lack thereof) of the debate contributions by both

politicians (quantitative). This evaluative nature might contribute to the perceived attitudes.

Secondly, in specific cases, pro-/anti-European standpoints are enforced by intensifiers (qualitative).

54

Biber (1988, p. 101 – 108) touches on this when he links frequent use of amplifiers (intensifiers) to an involved stance. 55

For the complete overview/checklist of intensifiers, see Van Mulken & Schellens (2012, p. 48 – 53)

41

Results

Counting all intensifiers by both politicians gives the following results:

(Table 8) Frequencies of the use of adjectival, adverbial and nominal intensifiers, relative to the total amount of words.

Farage Verhofstadt

Intensifiers 1,41* (142)56 0,69* (95)

Table (8) shows that Farage uses significantly more intensifiers than Verhofstadt does. This indicates

that Farage intensifies his standpoints more often than Verhofstadt, by using intensifiers. This

difference in frequency possibly also contributes to the relatively evaluative nature of Farage’s

debate contributions, that was already discussed in the previous section in terms of the use of past

tense.

Besides the contribution of the frequency to the evaluative nature, there are also individual cases of

intensifier use by both politicians, in which the use of intensifiers intensifies the anti- or pro-

European message that is uttered at that moment, within specific sentences. This and the possible

contribution of intensifiers to evaluative nature will be discussed in the following examples.

Farage uses intensifiers to enforce his anti-European standpoints. He does so in multiple ways. One

of those ways is straightforward: presenting an anti-European standpoint with an intensifier in it.

Fragment (58) is a good example of this.

(58) (…) you've pursued euro-federalism combined with an increasing green obsession

And yes, it's been good - for bureaucrats, for big businessmen, for landowners, it has

not been a bad decade. But it has been a disaster for poor people, unemployed

people and those on low wages. (2F)

In fragment (58), Farage points at the negative consequences of Barroso’s (pro-European) pursuit of

euro-federalism. He intensifies the consequences by calling them ‘a disaster’57. He could have said

something like, ‘But it has been bad for poor people (…).’ Moreover, compared to this alternative

formulation, ‘a disaster’ seems to mark the fact that Farage is evaluating something; more than ‘bad’

would have done. Fragment (59) is another example of this.

(59) (…) you and others in the Troika would resort to the level of common criminals and

steal money from peoples' bank accounts in order to keep propped up this total

failure that is the euro. (15F)

In fragment (59), Farage is again showing the negative side of a specific European action. If he would

have said something like, ‘resort to such a low level and take money from peoples’ bank accounts in

order to keep propped up this failure that is the euro’, the degree of anti-Europeanness would

probably have been less. Also, ‘common criminals’, ‘steal’ and ‘total failure’ seem to contribute to

the evaluative nature; a listener might not expect such intense formulations and thereby easily

conclude that this is Farage subjectively evaluating the situation. These words clearly signal that

Farage is in evaluation mode, so to speak.

56

F: 142/10044 vs. V: 95/13835; LL = 30.48, p < 0,0001. 57

The clustering/overlap of metaphor and intensifiers is also striking here.

42

In fragments (60) and (61), Farage also uses intensifiers in a different way, also to intensify his anti-

European standpoint.

(60) (…) I think Mr. Barroso, today, the British people hearing you, calling for the EU to

become a global power making it absolutely clear that members states must obey,

must obey what you tell them whether they are in the relatively wealthy north or the

poorer south. (3F)

(61) (…) your friends here got together like a pack of hyenas, rounded on Papandreou,

and had him removed and replaced by a puppet government. What an absolutely

disgusting spectacle that was. (12F)

The use of ‘absolutely’ in these sentences both seem to fit the content of the sentences very well.

Namely, both sentences display a setting in which the E.U. is acting like an absolutist regime, that has

so much power that it can make members obey and replace governments by puppet governments. In

these instances, the original meaning of ‘absolute’ seems to fit the use of ‘absolutely’ as an

intensifier. Deleting ‘absolutely’ from fragment (60) would result in an utterance that makes the

sentence itself less intense, but it would also reduce the intensity of the ‘clearness’ Barroso is

claimed to have; it would be so clear that you cannot think otherwise.

Moving to Verhofstadt, only one typical kind of usage of intensifiers stood out as remarkable.

(62) We desperately need a resolution mechanism for the banks. (3V part 2)

By using ‘desperately’ here, Verhofstadt does two things: he intensifies Europe’s need for a

resolution and he implies that ‘we’ (referring to the European Union) is somehow humanlike.

Namely, he could also have said: ‘we very much need (…)’ or ‘we highly need (…)’ or ‘we badly need’,

which are all intensifiers, but without the affective, humanly feature that ‘desperately’ has. Only

entities that can experience desperation can ‘desperately need’ something.

Other than some other occurrences of desperate needs (for Europe), and some ‘absolutely’ needed

needs, no more intensified pro-European sentences were found in Verhofstadt’s debate

contributions.

43

4 Conclusion & Discussion

What stylistic choices do Nigel Farage and Guy Verhofstadt make in the European Parliament that

contribute to their perceived anti- and pro-European attitude, respectively? The answer to this

question is not straightforward. The stylistic features that were discussed in this research that seem

to contribute to the perceived attitudes of both politicians quite strongly are the uses of metaphors,

the personal pronoun ‘we’ and specific word choices. Also, specifically the use of ‘need’ seems to

contribute to Verhofstadt’s perceived pro-European attitude quite strongly. The use of intensifiers

and tense also seemed to contribute to the perceived attitudes, be it in a more indirect way or in

specific fragments in the corpora. For both of these stylistic features goes that there are some loose

ends that could lead to more vast conclusions, when researched further58.

Looking at the results from a wider angle might give a more interesting answer to the research

question. Namely, at some points, the analyzed stylistic features seem to form a web/structure. E.g.

Farage’s use of historical ‘we’ seems to fit his use of specific metaphors (Titanic) and ‘of course’ in

the sense that all these stylistic features give the impression of having to undergo something, having

the knowledge that ‘we’ will always have to obey. Also, Verhofstadt’s use of ‘need’, ‘crisis’ and ‘lack’

also seem to fit in with each other flawlessly. This multitude of corresponding/interlocking pro-/anti-

European stylistic features matches the idea that attitude judgements are probably the result of

multiple stylistic features contributing to the macro level and not just one stylistic feature, as claimed

by Van Leeuwen (2015, p. 84 – 85 & p. 148). An analysis focused on only one stylistic feature, would

probably not have resulted in this insight.

Looking at Van Leeuwen’s (2014, p. 236) claims on the value of using a checklist (as introduced in

section 2.1.2), multiple things can be said. Van Leeuwen (2014, p. 236) claims that the heuristic

function of the checklist makes for the fact that an analyst won’t easily overlook relevant stylistic

features. This heuristic function became apparent at several moments in this research. Namely, the

usage of intensifiers and ‘need’ was found by using the checklist, while these two stylistic features do

correspond with a specific checklist category directly. For instance, thee checklist category B6

effectively forced me as an analyst to take different types of verbs and their functions into

consideration in the checklist process, which led to noticing Verhofstadt’s specific use of ‘need’. The

same goes for the link between ‘evaluativeness’ (A1/A3) and intensifiers. Here, the effectivity of the

checklist lied in the broadness of the terms in the actual categories; everyone has a clue of what

‘evaluative’ can roughly mean and thereby a web of associations can get activated. One instance in

which the checklist actually gets too specific, however, is when it deals with ‘departures from the

past tense’. Although this category (B6) actually made me take past tense itself into consideration, I

wouldn’t say that finding the exact opposite of a checklist category as a relevant stylistic feature can

be attributed to that checklist category entirely. Category B6 might have to be rephrased to

something like: ‘are there any departures from the tense that is commonly used in the text or genre

of the text’? This is, however, a minor issue that only slightly reduced the heuristic function in only a

very small part of the checklist. Moreover, the stylistic features that were not claimed to be

58

In fact, more stylistic research in a slightly different fashion on Farage’s anti-European (Eurosceptic) attitude has been done and published at the time this thesis was being finished. Cf. Pierini (2016), which is a recommendable read.

44

contributing to a perceived attitude59 but were found in the checklist process (section 3.2) would not

have been found without using the checklist (e.g. repetition with coordinating conjunctions). This

also corresponds with Van Leeuwen (2014, p. 238)’s claim that specific categories from the checklist

are not at all obvious to look at if one does not use the checklist. The checklist actually activated a

process of open minded analysis. In this research, this actually turned out to be the case.

As was also discussed in section 2.1.2, Van Leeuwen (2014, p. 237) also pointed at the fact that using

a checklist can make an analysis more systematic and less ad hoc (than usual stylistic analysis). He

also nuances this by pointing at the fact that a subjective decision always has to be made whether to

include a specific stylistic feature or not. Based on this research, I stand by this nuance. At one point,

I, as an analyst, had to choose the stylistic differences between Farage and Verhofstadt that seemed

to be contributing to their perceived attitudes. It can easily be the case that I did not see a link

between a stylistic difference and the perceived attitudes, which was actually there. In fact, as the

analysis progressed, some stylistic features were added and deleted from the list of contributors to

the perceived attitudes (e.g. ‘need’, ‘imperative constructions’). Another analyst may actually have

included other stylistic features. For instance, the use of imperative constructions by Verhofstadt

seemed to contribute to a sense of urge in his debate contributions, which might be explainable as

contributive to his perceived pro-European attitude. Also, Verhofstadt’s use of coordinating

conjunctions give his debate contributions a sense of smoothness, which might also be explainable as

pro-European. Still, it was decided (by me, as an analyst) that these links were too indirect. Appendix

2 gives an overview of the stylistic features that were not analyzed in this research, but were found

using the checklist.

This research was based on a combination of a top-down (literature) and bottom-up (checklist)

identification of relevant stylistic features. An advantage I experienced of using this combination was

that the top-down part already lied down a kind of thought pattern, in which the other (bottom-up

established) stylistic features could fit. For instance, the combination of Verhofstadt’s combined use

of ‘we’ with ‘need’ might not have been found relevant if his use of ‘we’ wasn’t explored in detail.

And the literature on pronoun use allowed me to actually explore Verhofstadt’s use of ‘we’ in detail.

As said in section 3.1, the corpora of both politicians contain some debate contributions from

debates to which only one of the two politicians participated. This was done to expand the total

corpus size to a reasonable size. Although the topics are not exactly the same, and thereby the exact

situations in reality on the basis of which both politicians construe their visions/make their stylistic

choices, is not the same, the overall topics of those single-politician debates are kept similar. They all

consider the state/future of Europe.

Another final possible objection to this research might be that the two politicians do not have the

same mother tongue. This could mean that Farage has more formulation alternatives at his disposal

than Verhofstadt has, because of the fact that Farage is probably better at English, given the fact that

English is his native language. I cannot deny this difference. However, the chosen formulations can

still have specific effects that still can be interpreted as pro-European. It should also be stressed that

the debate contributions are often well-prepared. Whether attitude is perceived differently if a

speaker speaks in his native language or not could be an interesting topic for further research.

59

Cf. appendix 2.

45

This research could also have been focused on one specific stylistic feature and still have been a

complete research. E.g. a MIPVU metaphor analysis (Steen et al, 2010) would be a possibility for a

further, more complete metaphor analysis. For the sake of linking linguistic choices to attitude

judgements, a broader picture seems to be more fitting than a more detailed picture. By using the

checklist, the corpus was also taken as a starting point (bottom-up), and not only as a research object

on which the literature was applied (top-down). The bottom-up approach enabled me to focus on

the perceived attitudes, instead of having to go in full detail on every aspect that other literature

provides on a specific stylistic feature. In other words, not having had to do a full, in depth (MIPVU)

metaphor analysis, for instance, does make this analysis less detailed on that part, but it also made

me focused on the metaphors that actually contribute to the attitudes. Finally, opposed to an

analysis focused on one stylistic feature, this analysis shows a bigger picture due to the fact that

multiple stylistic features are addressed. This also matches the idea that attitude judgements are

probably the result of multiple stylistic features contributing to the macro level and not just one

stylistic feature, as claimed by Van Leeuwen (2015, p84 – 85 & p. 148).

Finally, it could be argued that the corpus size of this research is quite low. This may reduce the

validity of the conclusions that were drawn on a general level. For instance, it can be argued that the

section on metaphors draws too broad conclusions about the ‘metaphorical worlds’ of both

politicians, while using fragments from many different debate contributions. I think this is a valid

point60. However, I do think that the fact that the fragments are taken from all over the corpus is a

good thing for this research in particular. Namely, an attitude judgement also does not seem to be

constructed all of a sudden, at one specific moment; both Verhofstadt and Farage needed a long

time to actually get judged by someone.

60

Although I would invite every reader of this thesis to find counter-examples in the corpora.

46

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Appendix 1: Corpus overview The following tables give an overview of the speeches included in the corpus.

# Debates in which both politicians participated Year Word count

1 State of the Union (debate) 2015 F: 335 V: 961





6 Preparation of the European Council meeting of 17 and 18 March 2016 and outcome of the EU-Turkey summit (debate)

2016 F: 494 V: 921

7 Current situation in the European Union Statements by Mr François Hollande, President of the French Republic, and Ms Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (debate)

2015 F: 535 V: 682

8 100 years on from the First World War: lessons to learn and future of Europe (debate)

2014 F: 557 V: 344

9 Presentation by the Commission President-elect of the College of Commissioners and their programme (debate)

2014 F: 429 V: 981

10 Statement by the candidate for President of the Commission (debate)

2014 F: 938 V: 950

11 Programme of activities of the Greek Presidency (debate) 2014 F: 415 V: 1000

12 Economic governance 2011 F: 408

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/nl/97058/seeall.html?type=CRE




49

V: 689

13 Migration flows and asylum and their impact on Schengen (debate)

2011 F: 352 V: 459

# Debates in which Farage participated Year Word count

14F Preparations for the European Council meeting (22 May 2013) - Fight against tax fraud, tax evasion and tax havens - Annual tax report: how to free the EU potential for economic growth (debate)

2013 338

15F Current situation in Cyprus (debate) 2013 455

16F Future of Europe (debate) 2012 489

17F Accession Treaty : Treaty concerning the accession of the Republic of Croatia - Application of Croatia to become a member of the European Union (debate)

2011 351

18F Review of the Hungarian Presidency (debate) 2011 321

19F European Council and Commission statements - Conclusions of the European Council meeting on economic governance (28-29 October)

2010 535

# Debates in which Verhofstadt participated Year Word count

20V Debate on the future of the European Union - Statement by Jyrki Katainen, Prime Minister of Finland (debate)

2013 438

21V Debate on the future of the European Union - Statement by Mr Werner Faymann, Federal Chancellor of Austria (debate)

2013 822

Appendix 2: Stylistic features that did not contribute to the attitudes

Wh-clauses Verhofstadt seemed to use more wh-clauses. Fragment (1) is an example of this.

(1) You also have the Union of the 25, which is the European patent and Schengen, and

we have the ‘normal’ Union, the Union of the 27. (21V)

The impression of Verhofstadt using a construction with ‘which’ (or any other ‘wh-word’) more than

Farage does, does not really seem to contribute to Verhofstadt’s perceived pro-European attitude. In

fact, the frequent use of these construction could be a transfer from Dutch or French, languages he

also speaks. However, this is strictly speculative.

Possessive noun endings Farage seemed to use more possessive noun endings, of which fragment (2) is an example.

(2) Frankly, you are all now yesterday's men. (4F)

Although the content of this fragment probably contributes to Farage’s perceived anti-European

attitude, this does not seem to be retraceable to the possessive noun ending on ‘yesterday’.

50

Specificity of noun phrases Verhofstadt seemed to use more specific facts/numbers. Fragment (3) is a good illustration of this.

(3) The average of the bonds in the eurozone – NT bonds – is more than 200 basic

points, with, naturally, Greece at 2 149 basic points of difference – a 21%-higher

interest rate. In Portugal there is a difference of more than 1 000, as there is in Spain.

In Italy there is a difference of 400 basic points.

This use of numbers and facts might in fact contribute to Verhofstadt being perceived as bureaucratic

or elitist, but I know no judgements that claim that he is (although they might exist). Indirectly, this

may also contribute to his pro-European attitude, but I found this too vague/weak to further analyse.

Also, the fact that Farage, or at least UKIP (Farage’s party), seems to use less exact facts is also

touched upon in Engström & Paradis (2015, p. 521)61.

Repetition with coordinating conjunctions Verhofstadt’s debates were often structured very explicitly by coordinating conjunctions like ‘firstly’,

‘secondly’, ‘finally’ and discourse markers like ‘my final request to you’. This seems to create a flow

or logical red line towards a goal. This was initially included in the analysis, since this strife towards a

goal could be explained as a strife towards a pro-European goal. The conjunctions could then be

interpreted as smoothing the process towards a better Europe. However, this was not included in the

final analysis, since this link might be too mystical or vague. This could be a good point for further

research.

Imperative sections Verhofstadt seemed to use a lot of imperative constructions, often occurring in clusters. Fragment (4)

is an example of this.

(4) Let us have a convergence code. Let us have this Green Paper and decisions on the

Green Paper. I hope that the Green Paper on stability bonds can be put before

Parliament in the coming days. Let us also look into the very important proposal

made two days ago (…) (12V)

This definitely adds some urgency to Verhofstadt’s sentences and, combined with pro-European

content, this could be interpreted as a booster of pro-Europeanism. However, the link between the

imperatives and pro-Europeanism on itself does not seem to be there per se. I.e. Farage could also

express urge to disband the whole European Union.

61

Engström, R. & Paradis, C. (2015), The in-group and out-groups of the British National Party and the UK Independence Party, Journal of Language and Politics, 14(4).

51

Appendix 3: Checklist (by Leech & Short, 2007, p. 61 – 64)

54

Appendix 4: Debate contributions by Farage

1F

Mr President, Mr Juncker has simply got this wrong. As I warned in April, the European Common

Asylum Policy sets its terms so widely as to say that anyone setting foot on EU soil can stay: I said it

would lead to a flow of biblical proportions, and indeed that is what we are beginning to see. This has

been compounded by Germany saying last week that basically anyone can come. It is a bit too late

now to draw up a list, by countries of origin, of who can stay and who cannot stay. All they have to

do, as they are doing, is throw their passports into the Mediterranean and say they are coming from

Syria.

As we know, the majority of people who are coming – and the Slovakian Prime Minister has been

honest enough to say so – are economic migrants. In addition, we see, as I warned earlier, evidence

that ISIS is now using this route to put their jihadists on European soil. We must be mad to take this

risk with the cohesion of our societies. If we want to help genuine refugees, if we want to protect our

societies, if we want to stop the criminal trafficking gangs from benefiting as they are doing, we must

stop the boats coming – as the Australians did – and then we can assess who qualifies for refugee

status.

I noted your comments, Mr Juncker, because there is a referendum coming in the United Kingdom. I

look forward to seeing you in the UK. I know you intend to spend tens of millions of pounds of British

taxpayers’ money telling us what we should think. I have a feeling that the British people will warm

to you on a personal level, but, as to suggesting that getting rid of a few EU regulations is going to

change our minds, sorry – unless you give Mr Cameron back control and discretion over our borders,

the Brits, in the course of the next year, will vote to leave.

2F

Well, Mr Barroso, not just you but the entire unelected government of Europe and a chance perhaps

for our citizens to reflect on where the real power lies in this Union.

I've listened to you for nearly ten years - full marks for consistency - you are a man that likes fixed

55

ideology, you probably picked it up when you were a communist or Maoist, or whatever you were,

and for the last ten years you've pursued euro-federalism combined with an increasing green

obsession.

And yes, it's been good - for bureaucrats, for big businessmen, for landowners, it has not been a bad

decade. But it has been a disaster for poor people, unemployed people and those on low wages.

The euro which you believed would give us monetary stability has done the very opposite, it was a

misconstruction from the start, and it's pretty clear that youth unemployment, at nearly 50% across

the Mediterranean, is probably nearly double what it would have been as a direct result of the

misconstruction that is the euro.

They're in the wrong currency, but I know that you'll never ever admit to that, and the euro I think

will die a very slow and painful death. But you're all in denial about that.

But it's the green agenda that I find really more interesting. You keep telling us that climate change is

an absolute top priority, and you've been greeted with almost hysteria in this place over the last ten

years.

Well, those of us who have been sceptical about this have been mocked, derided, called 'deniers'.

We've argued from the start that the science wasn't settled, and we've argued very strongly that the

measures we're taking to combat what may or may not be a problem are damaging our citizens.

And we've been proved to be right. Tens of millions forced into fuel poverty, manufacturing industry

being driven away because of course our competitors in China and in America are going for cheap

fossil alternatives and of course wind turbines blighting the landscapes and seascapes of Europe.

And still today you go on about green growth. Well, the consensus is breaking behind you - you

know, [Industry] Commissioner Tajani the other day said that actually we face a systematic industrial

massacre.

It is time to stop this stupidity and to help you [holds up colour pictures] there is the NASA

photograph last August of the northern icecaps. And there is the NASA photograph this year of the

icecaps. They increased by 60% in one year. Leading American scientists are now saying we are going

into a period of between 15-30 years of global cooling.

We may have made one of the biggest stupidest collective mistakes in history by getting so worrying

about global warming. You can reverse this in the next seven or eight months. You can bring down

peoples' taxes. If you don't, they will vote on it in the European elections of next year.

Round two

"Well next year's European elections will not be contested on the old division lines of left and right

and several group leaders have agreed with that today. Frankly that is all irrelevant.

56

It will be contested between those of us who believe in national democracy within the nation state;

and those who believe that the 28 countries that are part of the EU are better governed by these

institutions. That in a sense is what this comes down to.

But Mr Barroso, those of us who believe in national democracy do not want to take us back to the

Western Front or 1914. Those of us who believe in national democracy will say to you that it is a

healthy assertion of identity.

But it also shows a deeper understanding of why the problems of Europe were caused in the past. It

is democratic nation states in Europe that are stable and will not go to war with each other.

I will remind people that without the vote in the House of Commons two weeks ago that we would

now be at war in Syria. What better proof can there be that nation state democracy can be a force

for good.

3F

Thank you, well I begin today on a happy note, to remember, that it is twenty years ago this very

week that the United Kingdom, having been signed up by the Conservative government to the

exchange rate mechanism, broke out of the exchange rate mechanism.

It was a great liberation for us and of course once having been bitten we didn't join the euro project

thank goodness. Sadly the same is not true for the rest of Europe and I thought through the last 18

months or so that the economic logic of why Britain left the ERM would apply particular to those

Mediterranean countries and I foresaw that actually those countries would leave the eurozone,

probably with Greece leaving this year.

But I now have to accept that I've been wrong about that, because I have totally underestimated the

complete fanaticism, Mr Barroso of you, your college of commissioners and the European Central

Bank.

You've come out fighting on all fronts, today you have announced there is going to be a banking

union, yet more centralised control, yet more regulation. You make it clear that whilst you think the

nation state should continue to exist it mustn't have any democratic powers. All democracy is to be

vested here under what you call the community method, which of course means your unelected

commission has the sole right to present that legislation.

So I don't believe you when you say that. I find the tone of much of what has been said and done of

the past few days is really very worrying, Mario Draghi, now known by some of those who believe in

the euro, as super Mario, he showed us his big bazooka the other day, he upped the stakes and he

told us, to me an odd concept, that he had unlimited money.

Now, I don't think money grows on trees, I think that money is limited to what the German, Dutch

and Finnish taxpayers are prepared to put in. But he's made it clear - his intention - he will fight to

the last German taxpayer to keep the Mediterranean countries that should never have of joined the

57

euro in there, and you've got of course the Prime Minister now of Italy, perhaps we ought to call him

'Monstrous Mario', who made it clear last week that he feared that nation state democracy could

bring down the European Union and therefore we have to bypass nation state democracy and pass

all the powers here.

Your henchman Oli Rehn, who is here today, he dares to tell countries when they should and should

not have general elections. He's urging Spain to accept a full bailout, so that they too are trapped in

the euro prison.

You know I have to accept that you now have the whip hand over the citizens of Europe and I now

think that this euro crisis will go on for a whole miserable decade.

In the end you will have to face the reality that even France and Germany cannot survive together in

the same economic and monetary union and certainly with President Hollande reducing retirement

ages, upping minimum wages and bringing in a hate tax for the successful which will see all the

entrepreneurs leave France, I'm afraid that gap will get bigger.

And I wonder where the hope comes for those who believe in nation state democracy. Well, we've

heard that the German court this morning has decided that the ESM is okay; maybe the Finns will say

they've had enough, maybe the Germans, as a country will say 'we no longer are going to go on

feeling ashamed and guilty of what our grandparents generation did and will start to stand up for our

own economic interests'.

I don't know. But I suspect that the best hope we've got actually comes from the United Kingdom,

where now the demand for a referendum is stronger than it's ever been; where a Conservative Prime

Minster is in very deep trouble.

And I think Mr. Barroso, today, the British people hearing you, calling for the EU to become a global

power making it absolutely clear that members states must obey, must obey what you tell them

whether they are in the relatively wealthy north or the poorer south. I think those comments - this

emerging, creeping euro dictatorship is something that will repulse millions of British people and the

only good news I take from today, is you've helped to bring that referendum just a little bit closer.

4F

Mr Barroso,

You told us this morning that the European Union is an inspiration. And whilst you admitted to there

being one or two little economic problems, you made it perfectly clear that jobs and growth were to

follow, that everything is going well - in fact you painted a vision that a new period of European

renewal is upon us.

Now as a former communist yourself you probably remember the old soviet leaders getting up to

give their speeches and telling everybody that there was a record harvest, or that tractor production

figures were terribly good.

58

And they of course believed that history was on their side and in fact President Krushchev got up and

said to the West 'We will bury you," so much did he believe in his own Union.

Well now of course we look back at that and we laugh. And I think in our tomorrows, people will look

back at you, and they will say 'how did this unelected man get all of this power?'

And how did Europe's political class sitting in this room decide that the community method [federal]

should replace national democracy.

I think people will look back in astonishment that we've surrendered democracy.

But what you want to do is to say, right, we have a European Union and what we're going to have to

do now is to have more of it. So as an architect - and you're one of the key architects of the current

failure - what we're going to do, even though everything to date has been wrong - we're going to do

more of the same.

Now I thought that was a definition of madness. I can't believe that is a rational response to any

situation in which you find yourself. And far from it being a 'State of the Union' I would argue that

the Union is in a state.

Because, just look at the confusion. We've got you as the President of the Commission. We've got a

President of the European Parliament. We've got my old friend Herman Van Rompuy, who is the

permanent president of the European Council. We've got the Poles - they're now presidents

temporarily [Poland holds six-month EU Council presidency] of the European Council.

We've got presidents all round this room, goodness me, even I am a president. I'm not sure what the

collective noun for presidents is, perhaps it's 'incompetence', I don't know. But certainly when you

take away democratic accountability, it's clear nobody is in charge.

And it's developing as a Union of intolerance. Anybody that stands up here and dares to give a

political view that is different to the received wisdom is written off as mad, insane, violent, fascist -

we've heard it for years from these people.

And the intolerance is so deep that when we get referendums in France, the Netherlands and Ireland

that reject your view, you see it - as a political class - as a problem to be overcome.

So I'm very worried about the whole root of this Union. There is a new [euro-] nationalism that is

sweeping Europe. You want to abolish the nation states - in your case, Mr Schulz, becuase you're

ashamed of your past - and you now want this flag and a new anthem to replace nation states and

you don't care how you get there. If you have to crush national democracy. If you have to oppose

popular referendums - you just sweep this aside and say that it's 'populism'. Well, it's not, it's

democracy.

And what is sweeping northern Europe now, starting off in April with that amazing result in the

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Finnish general election, is there is a new democratic revolution sweeping northern Europe. It's not

anti-European. It wants a Europe of trade; it wants a Europe of cooperation; it wants a Europe where

we can do student exchanges, where we can work in eachother's capital cities - it wants those

things.

But it does not want this European Union.

Frankly, you are all now yesterday's men.

2

Mr President, this point is often made, namely that a country like Britain is only 62 million people and

are we not better off being part of a big European club so that we can have more of a voice on the

world stage? Funny that, is it not? Here is Britain, the world’s fifth largest trading nation, which is

now prohibited from going into World Trade Organisation talks because all of that is done, on our

behalf, by an unelected European Commissioner.

Mr Duff, the answer actually is that an independent Britain that trades and cooperates with her

European neighbours in an age of globalisation would be able to forge her own trade relationships

across the world. It would make sense for a country like ours to start off with the English-speaking

world, which shares common law – our own kith and kin in the Commonwealth who we turned our

backs on so shamefully.

5F

Mr President, this grand occasion, Mr Barroso’s State of the Union speech, does not quite put him on

a par with President Obama. There is one fundamental difference, Mr Barroso: President Obama is

elected, and you are not. Forty-eight million people watched his address, and here in the European

Parliament we even have to beg MEPs to turn up to listen to you.

You completely ignored the state of the Union. You said how you felt things were going, you pointed

your way forwards. However, Eurobarometer, the Commission’s own polling organisation, tells us

the truth. It tells us that in the last six months, there has been a dramatic drop in confidence as

regards people’s belief in even belonging to the Union: a 10% drop in Germany; a 17% drop in Greece

and a 9% drop in Portugal. Less than half of EU citizens think that being a member of the club is

worth it.

Even more revealing is that in your own country of Portugal, over the last six months, a further one in

four people have lost total faith in EU institutions. That, Mr Barroso, is hardly an endorsement of

success or belief, and yet from most people today, there seems to be such great self-satisfaction.

Well, do not be too satisfied, because the people have worked it out for themselves: the real state of

the Union is that it is increasingly loathed and despised. And yet some claim that this is because they

want more Europe! Mr Verhofstadt said that people want more common policies. No! The evidence

is clear.

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Interesting, Mr President! When I barrack people, I get threatened with fines. But never mind.

The evidence shows that the more common policies there are, the less people like it. People have

recognised the devastation of the common fisheries policy; they have recognised the inequality of

the common agricultural policy; the lost business opportunities of a common commercial policy; and,

of course, now the big one: the common currency, this ill-conceived political attempt to force people

into a monetary union without ever asking any of them whether they wanted to be there. Well, it is

perfectly clear that this currency does not suit Germany and it does not suit Greece. One is now

trapped inside an economic prison. You can pretend the crisis has gone away, but it has not, because

the bond spreads are now 8% on five and ten-year bonds.

You can smile, Mr Schulz, but you know nothing of financial markets or how these things work. And,

in your own country, well, why should the German taxpayer increasingly pick up the bill?

This form of government is not working, and yet what we heard today is that we are going to have a

common defence policy and a common foreign policy.

The other reason why these polls are where they are is that people do not respect you because you

cheated to get the Lisbon Treaty through. We were told it would simplify everything, that we would

know where we stand. Well we do not. Who is in charge of this EU? Is it you, Mr Barroso? Is it my old

friend, Herman Van Rompuy? Is it the Belgian Presidency? That really is good stuff! You still cannot

form a government in your own country and yet you have the Presidency of the European Union!

Whichever way you look at it, the whole thing is a bit of a dog’s dinner really.

The EU has never had so much power, and yet it has never been so unpopular. But not satisfied with

the EUR 2.4 billion a year that is now being spent on EU propaganda, you want the overall budget to

increase by 6%, and we understand that you personally are to have a full-time TV crew to traipse

round with you, new press officers, new webmasters. You are not analysing why this is going wrong,

Mr Barroso; you simply do not get it.

Mr President, the row over the Roma in France is, of course, caused directly by failing European

Union policies.

It was a huge mistake to allow Bulgaria and Romania to join the European Union whilst there were

millions of Roma in those countries being heavily discriminated against. It is no wonder that, now

they are part of the Union, they are seeking to move elsewhere.

That goes for everything does it not? Every single one of the policies fails and leads to a problem –

whether it is this or whether it is the euro – and all the way through, we see a fanatical political

ambition to create a United States of Europe, regardless of the consequences. At no time has any of

this been endorsed by the voting public. That, Mr Barroso, is the true state of the Union.

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6F

Mr President, we are embarked upon a course of almost unbelievable stupidity. The historic error

made by Chancellor Merkel last year by saying all can come has led directly to this mess and now we

are being blackmailed by Turkey.

First they came for EUR 3 billion in a promise to reduce the numbers coming into Greece and the rest

of Europe and, of course, when the numbers increased many-fold they came back for another EUR 3

billion. And they will keep on coming back for more and more and more, as the British poet Rudyard

Kipling observed of the Danish incursions into England. That was called paying the Danegeld , but we

proved again and again that if once you have paid him the Danegeld you will never get rid of a Dane.

And now they have got us over a barrel, this new deal where for every one illegal migrant we send

back, if our human rights laws allow it, they will send us another one from Syria. So the argument is

that we paid them a fortune not to reduce numbers, and yet we have given in. And we have said yes

to visa-free access for 75 million Turks from June of this year. In theory, they can stay for 90 days. In

practice, many will disappear or, of course, claim family reunion. The numbers will go sharply up. And

in return for all of this, we are now going to fast-track Turkey as a full member of the European

Union. My goodness me, I wish that David Cameron was as good at negotiations as the Turks are! So

we are going to go into political union with a country that has got borders with Iraq, Iran and Syria.

We are going to go into political union with a country that is poorer than anybody else in the

European Union and give free movement to 75 million people and join up with a government that is

increasingly Islamist and authoritarian.

The Turkish Prime Minister said this week that Turkish membership will be a turning point. Too right!

The British Prime Minister has long supported Turkey being a member of this Union. In fact he has

fought hard over 10 years for them to join. He does not bat an eyelid at the extra GBP 500 million we

will stump up to help fund this crisis.

Well this referendum in Britain is all about what is the safest option, and given that the boss of

Europol says there are already 3 000 to 5 000 Islamist terrorists that have come into Europe using the

migrant routes, it is pretty clear to me that a vote to remain is a vote for Turkey. A vote to remain is a

vote for massively increased immigration into Britain and a vote to remain is a vote that makes

Britain more vulnerable to terrorism. Safer to vote to leave and take back control of our borders.

7F

Mr President, nobody in their right mind would not agree that it was a sensible thing to do, back in

the 1950s, to get France and Germany together round the table to break bread with each other, to

have a trade deal and to work as sovereign democratic nations together for peace. All of that was

absolutely right and high-minded.

Sadly, the whole thing has become corrupted. Tony Blair said that the EU today is no longer about

peace, it is about power. How right he was, and how that power has shifted. When Kohl and

Mitterrand came here representing their countries 25 years ago, it was a partnership of equals. But

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no longer. France is now severely diminished, trapped inside a currency from which, frankly, it

cannot recover and the French voice in this relationship and in Europe is little more now, frankly,

than a pipsqueak. It is an irony, is it not, that a project that was designed to contain German power

has now given us a totally German-dominated Europe.

Just look at the euro. Germany has a currency that is undervalued by 20% with a growing and

massive trade surplus. Most growth in the German economy since the collapse of 2008 has indeed

been in exports to other eurozone countries, such as your very big arms sales to countries like

Greece, Chancellor Merkel. And when we have a general election that says a country like Greece

wants to change direction, well I am sorry, but that now must be brushed aside because the Germans

do not want it.

In what must count as perhaps the worst piece of public policy seen in modern Europe for half a

century, when you compounded the already failing and flawed EU common asylum policy by saying

to the whole world ‘please come to Europe’ – and we saw, frankly, virtually a stampede, and we

learn that 80% of those that are coming are not Syrian refugees – in fact what you have done is to

open the door to young, male, economic migrants, many of whom, I have to say, behave in a rather

aggressive manner, quite the opposite to what you would ever expect to see from any refugee. Yet

when that failure is met by objections from countries like Hungary their opinions are crushed.

This is not a Europe of peace. It is a Europe of division. It is a Europe of disharmony. It is a Europe

that is a recipe for resentment. And yet, faced with all this failure, both of you, President Hollande

and Chancellor Merkel, said the same thing today. You said Europe is not working so we must have

more Europe: more of the same failing.

Well, there is, I think, a bright star on the horizon. It is called the British referendum and, given that

none of you want to concede Britain the ability to take back control of our own borders, a Brexit now

looks more likely than at any point in modern time. I hope and pray that Britain voting to leave the

European Union will be the beginning of the end of a project which, however noble its original

intentions, has gone rotten.

8F

Mr President, in his introduction President Barroso said that the First World War was an industrial

war. Indeed, you have only got to drive two hours up the A4 motorway from here and visit the

battlefield at Verdun to see exactly what he was talking about.

For those who have not visited, I think it is probably the grimmest battlefield on the Western Front or

indeed anywhere in the world, and certainly the grimmest I have visited. It was something that had

such a huge psychological effect on France that it very much dominated the thinking of Monnet and

Schuman post-1945 – that this awful thing must never happen again. Those of us in politics will all

remember that famous photograph of a quite large German Chancellor Kohl and a rather small

French President Mitterrand holding hands, standing in front of the ossuary at Douaumont.

The whole European project comes from the disaster that was sparked by the First World War. It is

entirely understandable that people should have sought ways to prevent such awfulness. The

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difficulty is that they chose the wrong target. Monnet and Schuman decided – and this view is shared

today by Mr Barroso, Mr[nbsp ]Cohn-Bendit and others – that it was the existence of the nation state

that led to war and therefore we had to abolish the nation state. Actually, what we should have

focused on, post-1945, was not the abolition of states, but making sure that the European states

were democratic, because democratic nation states do not go to war with each other.

So I have to say that I believe the whole European project is based on a falsehood. It is potentially a

dangerous falsehood, because if you try to impose a new flag, a new anthem, president, army, police

force, foreign policy – and whatever else – without first seeking the consent of the people, you are in

danger actually of creating the very nationalisms and resentments that you sought to snuff out in the

first place.

We have done all this before. We did it after the First World War in the Balkans. We said that we

could not have all these little Balkan states going around fighting with each other. We said that we

should bring them together and give them one flag, one anthem and one president and call it

Yugoslavia. It led to horrific wars from 1990 and the deaths of tens of thousands of people, as they

fought to get out of a false state.

The European Union is making a very similar mistake, because there is no consent for this project. I

have heard people this morning talking about the need for a United States of Europe on a federal

model. You can only have that if people give consent for it, and nobody has done so. When the EU

put the constitution to the peoples of Europe – the first time it really came clean with the electors –

they rejected it.

I am not against Europe, but I am against this Europe. I want a Europe of independent, sovereign

nation states that trade together, work together and cooperate together. I believe the European

elections this year will mark a turning point. The tide is turning. The EU is backing an outdated model

that seeks to get rid of a problem that actually has not existed since 1945.

9F

Mr President, as Mr Juncker presents his new Commission this morning he is telling us that they are

all in the last chance saloon. Well, I tell you what, Mr Juncker, I will come and see you there, but you

are going to have to introduce me to them because this is very much a bunch of nonentities,

unknown. I spoke to MEPs this morning who will be voting later, and most of them could not even

name half of them. The one from Britain is so obscure that his name is Lord Hill but it should be Lord

‘Who?’! The British public could not pick the bloke out of a line-up! He has never been elected to

anything in his life – which means he is perfect for the job.

I do not think that the European public or commentators understand what the European Commission

really is. The Commission is the executive. It is the government of Europe and it has the sole right to

propose legislation. It does so in consultation with 3 000 secret committees, staffed mainly by big

business and big capital, and all the legislation is proposed in secret. Once something becomes a

European law, it is the European Commission itself which has the sole right to propose, repeal or

change that legislation. The Community method which was championed this morning, the means by

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which the European Commission makes law and holds law, is actually the very enemy of the concept

of democracy itself. It means that in any Member State there is nothing the electorate can do to

change a single piece of European law. So we will be voting against the Commission today, not on the

basis of the individuals, but on the basis of the fact that it is a fundamentally un-, in fact, anti-

democratic form of government.

I suspect you are in for a tough time with this Commission. You are going to have the euro crisis

which has not gone away and is going to get worse. You are also going to have the UK debate where

it has now become unacceptable to the vast majority of British citizens for there to be total free

movement of people extended to half a billion people to come to Britain. Mr Cameron masquerades

as being an EU opponent, though I note this morning that the Conservatives are so brave that they

are even going to abstain. I think this will be the last European Commission that governs Britain,

because before the end of these five years we will be out of here.

10F

Mr President, if this is European democracy in action, as we have heard this morning, then I suggest

we have a rethink. We are told that as a result of the European elections, Mr Juncker here is the

nominee. Well I can tell you that absolutely nobody in the United Kingdom knew that when they

voted in the European elections it had anything to do with the next nominee. The truth of it is that no

voters in any of the countries actually realised what this process was. Mr Juncker’s name did not

appear on any single ballot paper. The whole thing has been the most extraordinary stitch-up. The

loser, Mr Schulz, gets the consolation prize of being an unprecedented second-term President in

Parliament. It is all just a pretence that we are increasing democracy. Of course, I will be told ‘ah yes,

but hang on a second, the European Parliament, the elected bit of the European institutions, did

actually have a say and did decide whether Mr Juncker was to become Commission President or not’.

Well, let us just have a think about the process we are about to engage in.

We are all going to be asked to vote – and we have got one candidate to vote for! It is like good old

Soviet times, isn’t it? Surely, democracy means you get rather more of a choice than one. But far

worse than that is that it is going to be a secret ballot. You really could not invent it, could you? Hard

on the heels of European elections, our voters are not going to know how any of us have voted. I

would say to you Mr Schulz, as President of the Parliament, that Parliament should not vote in secret.

The whole point of being publicly-elected representatives is that we should be held accountable for

our actions to our own voters. To be asked to vote in secret is a huge insult to voters.

I would have thought that after the huge advances in the Eurosceptic vote, there might have been a

rethink somewhere in Brussels, but clearly that was not to be. Mr Cameron had a brief go and tried

to oppose Mr Juncker’s candidacy, but he was busy succeeding with reshuffles in Britain and failing

with reshuffles here, and Mrs Merkel of course crushed him because what the German Chancellor

says goes in the modern Europe.

So what of our nominee? On the plus side, Mr Juncker, you are a sociable cove with a very much

better sense of humour than most people I have met in Brussels, and there is no question that you

are a political operator. You have even managed over the last couple of weeks, as you have gone

round the political groups, to change the mood music a bit. You have said that you do not believe in a

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united states of Europe, and that you do not believe in a common European identity, but I have to

say I did not believe a word of it.

Today you have proven that actually you are stuck back with the ideas of the old Europe. You talked

about Mr Delors being a hero of yours. I can understand that from your perspective, but you also

talked about Mr Mitterrand and Mr Kohl as being heroes of yours. I would have thought a wartime

collaborator and somebody who left German politics under a huge cloud of a massive party-funding

scandal should not be the kind of people that we should stand up as great models of virtue in

modern Europe today.

You talked about the need for a common foreign policy and security policy. You talked about the

need for a common energy policy. What is clear is that you are going to carry on with the process of

the centralisation of powers, which is not surprising because for 20 years you have been a key player

in this whole process, which frankly has treated democracy with deliberate contempt. I think the best

example is your quote about the French referendum on the constitution where you said if it is a ‘yes’

we will say ‘on we go’, and if it is a ‘no’ we will say ‘we continue’. How is that for belief in

democracy? Your dedication to the project is unchallengeable. You have said before that when it

becomes serious, you have to lie. So in many ways you are the perfect candidate for a lot of people in

this House and I have no doubt that you will get the nomination, but we are being asked to vote for

the ultimate Brussels insider, somebody who has always operated with dark backroom deals and

stitch-ups, and I have to say that our group overwhelmingly will vote ‘no’. We do not want business

as usual. We want real change.

You said at the end of your speech that this is not the time for a revolution. I put it to you that there

has already been a revolution. There has effectively been a coup d’état on nation state democracies

without people realising, without people realising what was being done to them. After these

elections, the Eurosceptic may not yet have a majority in this House, but please do not think we are

over, because the vast majority of European people do not want a European state, do not want a

European Commission to be the executive, do not want that flag and do not want that anthem. So,

you will get elected and we will enjoy doing battle over the course of the next year or two.

11F

Mr President, I must congratulate you, Mr Samaras, for getting the Greek Presidency off to such a

cracking start. I am sure your overnight successful negotiations in the trialogue on the Markets in

Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) will have them dancing in the streets of Athens. No matter

that your country, very poorly advised by Goldman Sachs, joined a currency which it was never suited

to; no matter that 30 % are unemployed, that 60 % of young people are unemployed, that a neo-Nazi

party is on the march, that there was a terrorist attack on the German embassy.

No, do not worry about all that, because the trialogue on MiFID has been a success, and in many

ways it sums up the two Europes: the Europe that is talked about in here by the dreamers, who want

to impose a united states of Europe with an identity and currency, and the real world out there. And

you come here, Mr Samaras, and tell us that you represent the sovereign will of the Greek people?

Well, I am sorry, but you are not in charge of Greece, and I suggest you rename and rebrand your

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party. It is called New Democracy. I suggest you call it No Democracy, because Greece is now under

foreign control.

You cannot make any decisions, you have been bailed out and you have surrendered. Democracy:

the thing your country invented in the first place, and you cannot admit that joining the euro was a

mistake, because of course Mr Papandreou did that, didn’t he? He even said there should be a

referendum in Greece – and within 48 hours the unholy trinity that now run this European Union had

him removed and replaced by an ex-Goldman Sachs employee puppet.

We are run now by big business, big banks and, in the shape of Mr Barroso, big bureaucrats, and that

is what these European elections are really going to be all about. It is going to be a battle of national

democracy versus EU state democracy. Whatever you may say in this Chamber, the people out there

do not want a united states of Europe, they want a Europe of sovereign states trading and working

together, and I believe the European elections are going to mark a watershed. Until now everybody

has thought – much as they may not like the development of the European Union – that it was

inevitable. That myth of inevitability will be shattered by the European elections this year.

12F

Mr President, here we are, on the edge of a financial and social disaster, and in the room today we

have the four men who were supposed to be responsible. Yet we have listened to the dullest, most

technocratic speeches I have ever heard. You are all in denial.

By any objective measure, the euro is a failure. Who is actually responsible? Who is in charge out of

you lot? Well of course the answer is none of you, because none of you have been elected. None of

you actually have any democratic legitimacy for the roles that you currently hold within this crisis.

Into this vacuum, albeit reluctantly, has stepped Angela Merkel. We are now living in a German-

dominated Europe – something that the European project was actually supposed to stop, and

something that those that went before us actually paid a heavy price in blood to prevent.

I do not want to live in a German-dominated Europe and nor do the citizens of Europe, but you guys

have played a role. When Mr Papandreou got up and used the word ‘referendum’, you, Mr Rehn,

described it as ‘a breach of confidence’, and your friends here got together like a pack of hyenas,

rounded on Papandreou, and had him removed and replaced by a puppet government. What an

absolutely disgusting spectacle that was. And not satisfied with that, you decided that Berlusconi had

to go, so he was removed and replaced by Mr Monti – a former European Commissioner, a fellow

architect of this euro disaster, and a man who was not even a member of the Parliament. It is getting

like an Agatha Christie novel where we are trying to work out who is going to be the next person who

is going to be bumped off. The difference is that we know who the villains are.

You should all be held accountable for what you have done. You should all be fired. I have to say, Mr

Van Rompuy, that 18 months ago when we first met, I was wrong about you. I said that you would be

the quiet assassin of nation state democracy, but you are not any more. You are rather noisy about

it, are you not? You, an unelected man, went to Italy and said that this is not the time for elections

but the time for actions. What, in God’s name, gives you the right to say that to the Italian people?

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13F

Mr President, yesterday indeed was Europe Day and in the courtyard here we had armed soldiers, we

had the Luftwaffe band and imperial eagles, we had the flag being paraded, being raised, the

European anthem; it was the display of militarism and EU nationalism.

I thought and hoped it was all just a bad dream, but today we have got you, Mr Barroso. You begin of

course by reiterating the fact that the free movement of peoples is the embodiment of the European

project. You then go on to say that it is the duty of Member States to share the burdens of migratory

flows into Europe. You advocate a common EU immigration policy, but of course you know that you

are losing because the row that has blown up between Italy and France shows that when there is a

crisis, between the theory of European integration and the practicality of nation state, it is the nation

state that wins.

So you are worried that you are losing and, in your defence of your position, in your defence of your

beloved acquis communautaire, your body of law, you resort to intolerance, you resort to

nationalism, you make me realise that what I saw yesterday was actually for real.

You attack those who want to control their own border policies. You attack them today as

xenophobes. You attack them as extremists, but worst of all, oh worst of all, you attack them three

times for being populists. Is that not a dreadful thing? The power of the ballot box. When people

dare to vote no in referendums, they are populists; when they want to control their own borders,

they are populists. I put it to you that populists are actually democrats and you abuse those who

want to fly the flag of populism.

Well, here it is, Mr Barroso. Here it is.

(Mr Farage, Mr Agnew and Mr Bloom held up small Union Jacks)

That flag has represented liberal democracy far more than any other Member State of this European

Union and it will go on long after your star-spangled banner has disappeared.

14F

Mr President, well, there is a great degree of unity here this morning. A common enemy: rich people

and successful companies evading tax, which is of course a problem – avoiding tax, which is not

illegal but gives this whole Chamber this morning a high moral tone and, as Mr Barroso says, it is all

about the perception of fairness. There is the added bonus, of course, that it drives a wedge between

the United Kingdom and the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and the Caymans.

But before we declare our virtues, perhaps we ought to look just a little bit closer to home, and I

hope that the taxpayers all over Europe listen to this. If we look at the officials that work for the

Commission and for Parliament, the highest category are people that earn a net take-home pay of

just over GBP 100 000 a year and yet, under EU rules, they pay tax of 12%. It is tax fraud on an

absolutely massive scale, and I would say to Mr Barroso: how can that be deemed to be fair? How

can people out there struggling – the 16 million unemployed in the eurozone – look at these

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institutions not only paying people vast sums of money but allowing them tax and, also of course,

pension benefits on a scale not seen anywhere else in the world? So I suggest we have a bit less of

this high moral tone.

And what have these officials given us? Well they were the architects of the euro, which is a

complete disaster. Their obsession with global warming, which chimes very strongly here, means we

are despoiling our landscapes and seascapes with these disgusting wind turbines and driving up

energy prices.

But never let it be said that I cannot acknowledge success when I see it, and I am sure the citizens of

Europe will all clap and cheer loudly that the grave mortal danger of olive oil in dipping bowls has

been removed by the officials. Well done, everybody!

15F

Years ago, Mrs Thatcher recognised the truth behind the European Project. She saw that it was about

taking away democracy from nation states and handing that power to largely unaccountable people.

Knowing as she did that the euro would not work she saw that this was a very dangerous design.

Now we in UKIP take that same view and I tried over the years in this parliament to predict what the

next moves would be as the euro disaster unfolded.

But not even me, in my most pessimistic of speeches would have imagined, Mr Rehn, that you and

others in the Troika would resort to the level of common criminals and steal money from peoples'

bank accounts in order to keep propped up this total failure that is the euro.

You even tried to take money away from the small investors in direct breach of the promise you

made back in 2008.

Well the precedent has been set, and if we look at countries like Spain where business bankruptcies

are up 45% year on year, we can see what your plan is to deal with the other bailouts as they come.

I must say, the message this sends out to investors is very loud and clear: Get your money out of the

Eurozone before they come for you.

What you have done in Cyprus is you actually sounded the death knell of the euro. Nobody in the

international community will have confidence in leaving their money there.

And how ironic to see the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev compare your actions and say, ' I

can only compare it to some of the decisions taken by the Soviet authorities.'

And then we have a new German proposal that says that actually what we ought to do is confiscate

some of the value of peoples' properties in the southern Mediterranean eurozone states.

This European Union is the new communism. It is power without limits. It is creating a tide of human

misery and the sooner it is swept away the better.

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But what of this place, what of the parliament? This parliament has the ability to hold the

Commission to account. I have put down a motion of censure debate on the table. I wonder whether

any of you have the courage to recognise it and to support it. I very much doubt that.

And I am minded that there is a new Mrs Thatcher in Europe and he is called Frits Bolkenstein. And

he has said of this parliament - remember he is a former Commissioner: 'It is not representative

anymore for the Dutch or European citizen. The European Parliament is living out a federal fantasy

which is no longer sustainable.'

How right he is.

16F

Mr President, happy Schuman Day, or Europe Day as you now call it, although I thought the

celebrations were rather muted. The only bit of real passion we had was Mr Schulz slagging off the

English, but that now appears to be a sort of popular sport in this Parliament.

When people stand up and talk about the great success that the EU has been, I am not sure anybody

saying it really believes it themselves anymore. I think we are celebrating the wrong day. We should

not be celebrating 9 May; we should be celebrating 8 May: Victory in Europe Day. We should

celebrate the last time the Germans tried to smash the continent and they foundered and at least

half the continent got its democracy back.

What we are celebrating on 9 May is another attempt, through different means, to smash democracy

across Europe. I do not doubt for a minute that Jean Monnet was well intentioned at the start; he

thought that if you abolish nation states, you would stop there ever being another war. He did not, at

the time, of course, have the benefit of seeing that theory as it played out in Yugoslavia. But, like

Communism, this has all gone badly wrong and the EU Titanic has now hit the iceberg. It is a

European Union of economic failure, of mass unemployment, of low growth but, worst of all, it is an

EU with the economic prism of the euro and this now poses huge dangers to the continent. We face

the prospect of mass civil unrest, possibly even revolution, in some countries that are being driven

into total and utter desperation.

But there is perhaps an opportunity; there is perhaps some good news. Now a democratic rebellion

has begun. It began in Finland last year with the True Finns getting nearly 20% of the vote and we are

seeing in country after country new political movements on the Right and on the Left making big

scores. But that may not be all good news because what we saw in Greece last Sunday was rather

reminiscent of the German election of 1932. We saw the status quo Centre collapse and the

extremes of Right and Left rise.

You know, this project could even cause the rebirth of National Socialism in Europe. We are headed

the wrong way. We must break up the eurozone; we must set those Mediterranean countries free;

we must try to build a Europe. I want a Europe, but a Europe based on trade, a Europe based on

cooperation, a Europe based on us sitting round the table and agreeing sensible rules on crime and

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the environment. We can do all of those things but we cannot do them if we are asked to rally

behind that flag. I owe no allegiance to that flag and nor do most of the people in Europe either.

17F

Madam President, I recently visited Croatia; I wanted to find out whether a proper national debate

was going on, whether there was a fair campaign. What did I find? Well I found that the EU is doing

everything it can to bribe the political class in Croatia. Doing it quite well too. Already the EU has

given EUR 320 million to Croatia in what is called pre-accession aid; the EU has just spent a million

euros on a blatant propaganda advertising campaign telling Croatia that the EU is their only hope.

Cleverly, you have even given jobs to Croatians – highly paid jobs to Croatians in the European

Parliament and in the European Commission – just to show them how well off they – the ruling class

– will be if they join. And you have got EU flags flying on official buildings all over the country, to give

the impression that it is a done deal. You have some willing helpers because the old Communists are

still there in Croatia. They still hold all the positions of power and they will all become personally

enormously wealthy if Croatia joins the European Union.

There is an even more sinister side to this because there is not a free press in Croatia. There is no

national debate going on at all. Indeed a prize has been offered – HRK 10 000 – if anybody can find an

article in any Croatian newspaper suggesting that joining is not the right thing to do.

The whole campaign is bent, corrupt and distorted. We have seen this before from the European

Union, but I think it is happening on a scale in Croatia that is worse than I have seen before. This

country has for nearly a thousand years sought independence and for 20 years they have had

independence. They got out of the failed political experiment that was Yugoslavia. If they vote to join

the European Union, they are voting to rejoin a new Yugoslavia, a failing political experiment that will

implode. I hope there is, in the last month or two, a debate in Croatia. Sadly, I doubt it.

18F

Mr Orbán, you are one of the few European leaders who has a grasp of history, believes in the nation

state and champions democracy. I would say Hungary is lucky to have you. You have shown you are

not prepared to be bullied by these EU nationalists. When you say that previously Hungary was

dictated to by Moscow, and now it is Brussels, and you say that you are going to stand up to it, you

actually mean it. So I think you have proved to be the secret weapon of the Eurosceptic movement.

Your six-month tenure in this presidency has indeed been historic, because in the last six months the

peoples of Europe have finally woken up to what a completely undemocratic and failing project this

is.

There have been some real highlights in your six months. In particular, one thinks back to the Finnish

general election and the stunning success of the True Finns party. Who can blame ordinary taxpaying

voters, in Finland or elsewhere, for saying that they do not want to go on bailing out this failed

project called the euro? Well, hard on the heels of the Finnish result we had the third catastrophe,

the third casualty; Mr Barroso’s own Portugal needed to be bailed out. Then of course we were back

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to Greece for the second bail-out, with people out rioting on the streets. But perhaps to cap it all, the

real highlight of your presidency was that the Danes tore up the Schengen Agreement. So, all in all, I

would say that you have had a remarkable, superb six months in office. More has happened to

reawaken democracy and the future of the nation state perhaps than ever before.

I think there is a growing realisation, both here and elsewhere, that the worm has turned, and we

have seen the beginning of the end of this extremely dangerous project. Mr Orbán, jolly well done!

19F

You've been in office for one year and in that time the whole edifice is beginning to crumble, there's

chaos, the money's running out - I should thank you; you should perhaps be the pin-up boy of the

Eurosceptic movement.

But just look around this chamber, this morning. Just look at these faces. Look at the fear. Look at the

anger. Poor old Barroso here looks like he's seen a ghost.

They're begining to understand that the game is up and yet in their desperation to preserve their

dream, they want to remove any remaining traces of democracy from the system. And it's pretty

clear that none of you have learnt anything.

When you yourself, Mr van Rompuy, say that the euro has brought us stability. I suppose I could

applaud you for having a sense of humour, but isn't this, really, just the bunker mentality?

Your fanaticism is out in the open. You talked about the fact that it was a lie to believe that the

nation state could exist in the 21st Century globalised world. Well, that may be true in the case of

Belgium, who haven't had a government for six months, but for the rest of us, right across every

member state in this Union - and perhaps this is why we see the fear in the faces - increasingly

people are saying, 'We don't want that flag. We don't want the anthem. We don't want this political

class. We want the whole thing consigned to the dustbin of history.'

And we had the Greek tragedy earlier on this year, and now we have this situation in Ireland. Now I

know that the stupidity and greed of Irish politicians has a lot to do with this. They should never ever

have joined the euro. They suffered with low interest rates, a false boom and a massive bust.

But look at your response to them. What they're being told, as their government is collapsing, is that

it would be inappropriate for them to have a general election. In fact Commissioner Rehn here said

they had to agree their budget first before they'd be allowed to have a general election.

Just who the hell do you think you people are?

You are very very dangerous people, indeed. Your obsession with creating this Euro state means that

you're happy to destroy democracy. You appear to be happy for millions and millions of people to be

unemployed and to be poor. Untold millions must suffer so that your Euro dream can continue.

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Well it won't work. Because it's Portugal next, with their debt levels of 325% of GDP, they're the next

ones on the list, and after that I suspect it will be Spain. And the bailout for Spain would be seven

times the size of Ireland's and at that moment all of the bailout money has gone - there won't be

anymore.

But it is even more serious than economics. Because if you rob people of their identity. If you rob

them of their democracy, then all they are left with is nationalism and violence. I can only hope and

pray that the Euro project is destroyed by the markets before that really happens.

Appendix 5: Debate contributions by Verhofstadt

1V

Mr President, first of all I would like to extend to Mr Juncker my condolences and those of my Group

on the death of his mother.

Maybe next year we can hold a slightly different debate, and perhaps invite the 20 heads of states

and government. There is enough room on this side of the House. Mr Juncker does not have 90

minutes to speak in the Council during his State of the Union address. This would also enable Mr Tusk

to be here, because we all accept now that there should be a permanent President of the European

Council, and he has to be here.

I know he is in the Middle East in Ramallah in Jerusalem, but he has to be in Europe, going from

capital to capital to develop a common European policy on asylum for immigrants. That is his task for

the moment. Here we come to the heart of the problem, namely the lack of political will and – I say

to Mr Kamall – the lack of unity between the Member States.

What Mr Kamall was defending here a few minutes ago is a system of ‘pick and choose your

strategies’. This amounts to Britain doing it one way, Germany doing it another way and Hungary

certainly doing it another way: with a fence and a wall. That is not the way to deal with such

problems! A refugee crisis is the collective responsibility of the European Union, that is what is at

stake.

What we have to do is to stop, act and react. Our Member States are merely reacting, they are not

acting. In April we got a strategy for the Mediterranean. What did we do? We increased the Frontex

budget a little bit, thinking that would solve the problem. The problem was not solved!

Fifty days later, there were all these refugees blocking the entry of the tunnel to Britain and what did

we do? We gave a little bit more money for tents and for food for these poor refugees in Calais and

we thought the problem was over and we could go on holiday. Well what did I tell you?

Then in Budapest there was the incredible sight of refugees being herded to the train station, treated

without any respect. And then we say, ‘let them go, let us put some of them on trains so they can go

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to Austria and to Munich’. And we think the problem is over. This attitude is disgraceful for Europe

because it is not the right way to treat refugees.

We have to recognise that some countries, Germany for example, are accepting their responsibilities.

In Munich they accepted 20 000 refugees in five days. But some countries are saying that they will

not accept them for five years and other countries are simply saying ‘no way, not for us’. Fortunately,

in sharp contrast, thousands of ordinary people have shown solidarity, more solidarity than our

national leaders in the Member States of the European Union.

And so my message – not to you Mr Juncker, I apologise – for the Council in particular is: stop saying

it is a crisis of Europe, it not a crisis of Europe. It is in fact a crisis of a lack of Europe! Let us tell the

truth to the people. Dublin is not Europe. Dublin is the negation of Europe. All it is saying is ‘it is up to

the Italians, it up to the Greeks to take responsibility’.

The Commission took a very important step in May by sharing responsibility. I hope that the Council

can accept, in a matter of days rather than months, a number of these proposals, including perhaps

the idea of a legal migration system, because many people are saying that refugees and economic

migrants are not the same. This can only be solved with a legal migration system, a blue card, rather

than the 28 systems we have today in Europe.

Like the Americans have a green card, we have a blue card. But the blue card in Europe is the 29th

system, on top of the 28 existing systems. It is only Germany that uses this blue card. We have to

change that, and I was pleased to hear Mr Juncker announce that in 2016 there would be a package

on legal migration to solve that problem.

In conclusion, the most important lesson that the Council can draw is that we cannot look away from

a crisis in our neighbourhood. We will always pay the price for it. Do not think that we can have a

conflict in the north of Africa or the Middle East and Europe can be unaffected since it is outside

Europe. We are paying the price for this.

We in this House were convinced that the Syrian war was not our problem. Numerous times we had

debates here and people said ‘no, let us do nothing; there is no need to help the democratic forces’.

Well we created two things: first of all the spread of Islamic State and, secondly, a huge refugee

crisis.

So we need to do something. If this debate concludes by merely repeating our point of view it will

not be enough. We need a new initiative within the framework of the United Nations to end the

bloodshed in Syria, to stop terrorism and to make Syria safe again for the refugees so that later on

they can return to their homes.

My plea to Mrs Mogherini, my plea to the Presidency of the Council, is that we should call on our

representatives on the UN Security Council to launch such a new initiative as soon as possible to end

the conflict in Syria because it is the only sustainable solution for this crisis.

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2V

Mr President, this was Mr Barroso’s last State of the Union address before the elections, and he has

also spoken about these elections. But let me be very frank: there is absolutely no room today for

complacency, because in my opinion a number of important things – maybe the most important

things – are still to be done to tackle this crisis. I am not alone in saying this. In last week’s issue

of The Economist they wrote, and I quote: ‘our sleepwalking leaders must start now to agree if we

want to avoid disaster’. The Economist was not talking about the President of the Commission – I

think that the sleepwalking leaders that they meant were more to be found in the Council than in the

Commission – but that is a fair analysis of what is happening.

We have to be clear here. This crisis is not over. It is true you have given a whole range of early signs

of recovery, but we have to make a realistic assessment, a realistic analysis of the situation. These

first signs of recovery are more the proof of the fact that we have hit the bottom of the recession,

and that means that we are entering what I call a second phase of this crisis. It is far too easy only to

see the negative points, as has been done a few minutes ago – but it is also not fair only to see the

positive signs and say, OK, it is over now, we are going up again. That is not true. What we are in fact

seeing is a second phase in this crisis: a long period of economic stagnation that we are about to

enter – what I call a Japanese winter.

You know in Japan in the 1990s they also had a real-estate bubble. They entered an unresolved

banking problem and for two decades they had low growth figures, high unemployment figures,

growth between 0% and 2%, and that is what we are falling into now at this moment. So my problem

with the State of the Union address, Mr Barroso, is that it fails to show a consistent vision for that

problem: how to avoid a Japanese winter, how to avoid two lost decades of economic stagnation in

the next twenty years. What do we do to avoid that? What is our common vision so we do not fall

into that trap?

Personally I think that three things are necessary. Three big reforms towards a new Europe. The first

thing – you have spoken about this and I want to come back to it – is a real banking union that is

more than the Single Supervisory Mechanism that we have today.

Secondly – and there was not enough of this in your vision of the future – we need a more integrated

eurozone, with a real government in the eurozone and in the European Union, with a common

treasury, with common financial instruments so that we can finance our investments at a lower

interest rate. We are on average paying 2% more interest in Europe to finance our investments than

for example in Japan and America. So how can we recover?

Thirdly, I think we also have to open the issue of whether is it perhaps necessary to have a broader

task for our Central Bank, as the Bank of Japan has, as the Federal Reserve Board in the United States

has. In other words, next to inflation targeting, you should have gross domestic product targeting.

In fact, what I want to do today, in this debate on the State of the Union, is to make a proposal to our

Parliament now to do something in these last eight months. Let us be honest, we can carry on in this

last eight months in the same way as we are doing now, with big fights between the different

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political parties and the Council, and then we will end up with nothing at all because we will have

reached the election campaign. Or we can use this time, these seven or eight months, to pick up a

number of files where we are saying that they represent an added value for our people and for our

citizens. Let us deal with a number of crucial files in the next months so that we can have something

concrete to show for the remaining seven, eight months of this legislative period.

My proposals are two: firstly, there is a proposal now on the table from the Commission on the

resolution fund to complete the banking union. Why not adopt this Commission proposal on a fast

track? I think that everybody here – all the groups – can agree on the proposal that Mr Barnier has

put on the table on the banking union and the resolution fund. Let us do a fast-track and let us

immediately start negotiations with the Council on this. If we start with the whole business of a

report and making our own mandate then we shall lose months and months and we shall not reach

the discussion with the Council.

My second proposal tends in the same direction. You now have a package on the digital agenda to

complete the single market with open Internet, with lower roaming tariffs. Either we discuss this,

losing months in Parliament; or, together we say: yes, OK, this is a good proposal by Ms Kroes and

the Commission, let us go forward and let us use a fast track. Let us immediately start the

negotiations. Why waste months and months on defining a mandate on this and have nothing to

show for it when the elections are here? No lower roaming tariffs and no open Internet?

My proposal to all the groups is that in the next weeks and months we make a deal on that, and the

same applies to the MFF. I am sorry – and I am saying that to the Council, I am repeating what Mr

Swoboda has said – there should be no agreement with Parliament if, as it appears, what you are

offering on the MFF is in fact breaching your word. That is what you are doing. You are putting on the

table a budget for 2014 that has lower figures for the MFF which we have to approve. How can that

be possible?

Finally, I think the next elections should not be a big fight between the Left and the Right. I do not

mind that, though certainly when you are in the Centre you have all the problems landing on your

head. But I think it should be more between Eurosceptics, who think that you can put the world

outside your borders, and pro-European forces, and I hope that all the pro-European forces can be

united to beat the Eurosceptics.

3.

Mr President, I think that it would be a big mistake to make it a fight between Eurosceptics and those

who are defending the present state of affairs in Europe. Then we would lose this election, Mr

Barroso.

There is a third way, a third choice to be made. That is to defend Europe, but a different Europe. In a

way the Eurosceptics are right in their criticism that this crisis has been badly managed. They are

right. That is not a criticism of you but is mainly directed at the Heads of State and Government, who

acted far too late and did far too little in a number of their reforms.

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What we have to defend is a pro-European line, but a line that is in favour of a different Europe from

that of today – a more integrated Europe than we have today. I am sure that this message could be

very popular if we want it to be. Who can believe Mr Callanan who, together with Mr Farage, is

telling everybody that we shall beat the Chinese and the Indians and that we shall beat the

Americans economically by retreating behind our national borders, by going to negotiations as single

nation states in this economic struggle of today. Nobody can believe that, Mr Callanan. A new vision

on Europe does not mean going back to the past. It means looking to the future and not to the past.

3V

Mr President, I would like to thank President Barroso very much for his message, because he has

recognised – and this was a change from the debates last month and last year – that we are still in

the middle of a deep crisis and we have to recognise that when we discuss the State of the Union

today.

But what we are seeing today is more of a deep political crisis. Everybody is talking about public

finances, about interest rates, about economics. In my opinion it is not about Greece, it is not about

the public finances, it is not even about economics as being the fallout of the crisis. The real nature of

this crisis is a political one and that is the political incapacity today to make the jump forward to a

federal union and, more precisely, the incapacity of the national elites of Europe to make this jump

to a more federal union in Europe. That is the real crisis we are going through today.

I am saying that, Mr Barroso, because you have made a whole speech, but at the end of the speech

you come up with a concept and that concept we cannot accept: a federation of nation states. No, no

federation of nation states, that is more of the same, we have that already – that is the European

Council, which is a federation of nation states where the Heads of Government and the Heads of

State were trying to solve and are incapable of solving this crisis. We do not want more of the same –

we do not need a nationalistic or a national future for Europe. We need a post-national future for

Europe. That is what we need. What we need for Europe is not a federation of nation states: it is a

federal union of European citizens. It is about citizens and it is not about nation states in the future.

Mr President, even after the decision of the Constitutional Court – I am always a little bit critical

when we talk about the Constitutional Court, as if there were no constitutional courts in other EU

countries for the moment, but maybe in the future we can give them as much attention as we have

given to Karlsruhe – there are still three remarks to be made.

First, it is not the European Central Bank that will solve the crisis. The European Central Bank can

help; the European Bank has done the unavoidable in that for the third time already – after Trichet

with SMP, after the LTRO – Draghi has bought us time again. But this is a stop-gap solution; this is not

a structural solution to this crisis and it is a mistake to think in this House that, if the ECB comes in,

then our problems are over. No, our problems are only over if we have the courage to create the

federal union that is so desperately needed. Do not think that this new measure of Draghi can work

for more than five or six months. The crisis will come back if we do not assume responsibility – that is

my second remark today, dear colleagues.

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We all know what the solution is. We all know – besides a number of individuals on the other side of

the plenary – that we need an economic union, we need a political union, we need a fiscal union. We

all know that is the solution. I find it unthinkable that we are still waiting to come forward with

proposals and what are we doing, in fact? Waiting for the outcome of the German elections or

something like that, because that is the political reality for the moment.

I stress that I think it is very good, Mr Barroso, that today you have introduced a proposal for a single

financial supervisor, which is one of the three building blocks for a banking union. But what I do not

understand is why the Commission is not also taking the initiative on the other building blocks that

are needed to solve this crisis.

We desperately need a resolution mechanism for the banks. The establishment of an economic

government and a treasury in Europe: we need it desperately, if we want to solve the crisis. The

mutualisation of debt by the establishment of redemption funds: even the chief of the

German Sparkasse last week said – and he is the former Minister of Finance in Bavaria, a good

member of the CSU – that it is absolutely necessary that we have a redemption fund if we want to

solve this crisis. Furthermore he, the chief of the whole Sparkasse in Germany, has asked the

European Commission to take the initiative in that regard.

So my question to you, Mr Barroso, is why these two standards? If the European Council in June was

asking you to come forward with a proposal for a banking union within two months – and that is a

good thing – why is Mr Barnier not putting forward a proposal for a banking union? If this Parliament

has already asked the Commission four times, in the Two-Pack and in the resolutions, to come

forward with a redemption fund, which is a real structural solution to this crisis, why do we receive

nothing at all? Why is the European Council more important than the European Parliament when you

come forward with your own initiatives? Why?

I believe that we are in a balanced Union. You have the Council and you have Parliament. If

Parliament requests that you come forward with a package of legislative proposals to end this crisis,

it is your obligation and duty to do that. We are still waiting. We are still waiting for, I do not know

what, perhaps the green light from Berlin or from of Paris before you take action in that regard.

That brings me finally to my third point, the proposal that we have on the table today, which is the

creation, the establishment of a single financial supervisory authority by giving more powers to the

European Central Bank. I have to tell you, Mr Barroso, I think it is a good idea that we have that,

because we need a single supervisor. But I have some question marks on the model that we are

choosing today because, let us be honest, what we are doing is mainly copying the Banque de

France . In most of our countries – in Britain it is the case, in Belgium, in the Netherlands and in

Germany too – you have a split between a monetary authority on the one hand and financial

supervision of banks on the other. I cannot understand why we cannot merge the three institutions

that we have today into what we call a financial supervisory agency or authority, so that we do not

mix a financial supervision task with a monetary authority.

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I see a number of possible conflicts today: euro zone banks versus non-euro zone banks; banks

versus other financial institutions. I see a problem between the ECB and the EBA. The EBA is creating

the roadmap and the ECB is applying the roadmap.

I also see a problem on democratic accountability, because democratic accountability is not

compatible with the independence of the Bank. So my proposal to you, Mr Barroso, is to look further

into that question and also to change the legal basis. My proposal and suggestion to you and Mr

Barnier is not only to use Article 127 as a legal base, but also Article 114, so that we have full

codecision with Parliament on such an important matter in the future.

So I conclude, Mr President, but I have a little more time as you interrupted me in the beginning of

my speech – with good news, so there is no criticism from my side. I think it is absolutely necessary

now, Mr Barroso, that not only do we hear a good speech from you but that you put forward a whole

package of legislative proposals in the way Parliament wants. Because do not forget that your

legitimacy comes from this House, from this Parliament, and it is also this House that can take it back.

Mr President, firstly, while to start with Mr Barroso was initially Mr Farage’s punching ball, is

Mr Farage now becoming Mr Barroso’s punching ball? I would see that as a positive development in

this Plenary.

I shall now come back to the main discussion we had an hour ago. I think – and my group thinks –

that the Commission should make more use of its right of initiative on a number of topics and on a

number of issues. I would advise the Commission not to wait for the green light – or red light – from

Paris, Berlin or other capitals. The red light is always there but not the green light. It needs to do

what is necessary and put its legislative proposals on the table. The effect on the market would be so

positive that it would be far more difficult for these countries to react negatively.

My third point concerns banking union. Mr Barroso has said that he does not want a delay. I do not

want a delay either. But that does not mean that, if he does not agree with a proposal that has the

support of the Council – and mainly of Germany in this instance – that we cannot discuss it. Just

because Germany considers that the ECB should do a given job we do not have to agree with it. I am

sorry, but that is not codecision, is it? Codecision means that for a short period – and you can be sure

that our coordinators will respect that and will examine the proposal – you can suggest other, better

possibilities, rather than creating double standards.

Finally, in Germany they need to be serious. They cannot at the same time give tasks other than

monetary functions to the ECB and criticise Mr Draghi for the interventions he is currently making in

the markets. It is one or the other: either it is independent – in which case we have no financial

supervision – or it is not, in which case they can continue to criticise Mr Draghi, as they have been

doing in recent weeks.

4V

Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the President of the Commission for his speech on the

state of the Union and also for a number of his proposals.

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Let us be very blunt about this. As you have recognised, the state of the Union is bad. Let us also

repeat here in this House that this crisis is not about Greece and Greece’s debt. This is a crisis about

the euro, about the European Union and, in fact, a crisis today about the existence – the vital

existence – of the European Union. We are confronted today (shouting from the Chamber) – yes, the

only difference is that you gave bad answers to that question, that is the problem – because the real

questions we have to ask are: are we able to stand together in this crisis? Are we able to stand united

in this crisis? Are we able to show real solidarity in this crisis, and have we the vision to do so, the

courage to do so and the political leadership in the European Union to do so? These are the

questions that we need to face today.

Let us start with the state of the Union. The state of the Union is bad, but I think we have to face

today’s reality. We are in the middle – not at the end – of a crisis, really in the centre of it. Look at

the reality. Mistrust of banks has again risen over recent days and weeks. Markets and stocks are at

the lowest level since 2008. The International Monetary Fund yesterday lowered its growth forecast

for Europe for next year to only 1.1%, down from 1.6%. Some economists are already talking about

recession in the Union. Finally – this is important because we will come back to this later on –

spreads: the tensions inside our markets have never been so high. Before the financial crisis, the

spreads in the eurozone – that is the difference between the average of the obligations, the bonds of

other countries (and Germany) – were only 19 – less than 20 – basic points. Today the spreads are

ten times higher. The average of the bonds in the eurozone – NT bonds – is more than 200 basic

points, with, naturally, Greece at 2 149 basic points of difference – a 21%-higher interest rate. In

Portugal there is a difference of more than 1 000, as there is in Spain. In Italy there is a difference of

400 basic points. These are tensions that are not sustainable. This must be solved not yesterday, not

today but in a short time period because it is unsustainable to continue like this.

There is a second question that we have to answer today. What solutions were provided for this

crisis – mainly by the Council, as has been indicated, and mainly by the Member States? They were

half measures, measures that have been seen as too little, too late. You will remember that the first

Council initiative after the start of the crisis in December 2009 was to announce a European solution

to the crisis by launching EUR 30 billion of bilateral loans to solve the crisis. That was the big idea in

February 2010 of the Member States and the Council. No European answers, no: bilateral loans to a

single country in the south of Europe. That should create the solution. What we saw was the crisis

becoming more and more difficult to overcome.

I should say that the highlight of this bad approach to the crisis has been the casino deal of the real

world. The decision was taken between France and Germany not to strengthen the Stability and

Growth Pact but to weaken the Commission’s proposal on the Stability and Growth Pact. We were in

the middle of the crisis on the Stability and Growth Pact and then the Member States came forward

with a proposal, saying that they had a deal in Deauville, near the casino – which is not such a bad

one, everybody wins there – and in the end the outcome was that we lowered the sanctions, we

lowered the penalties and you could simply continue the game inside the Stability and Growth Pact.

This has ruined the Stability and Growth Pact.

So, Mr Barroso, the most important conclusion of today has to be the message that you gave. You

gave it here, very well and to much applause, but now you have to repeat it in another place,

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somewhere in Brussels, at the Council. I am no longer there, but I am sure we will know what you say

there. You will have to repeat it there, telling them that the intergovernmental method is a bad

method that cannot work. And why can it not work? Because it needs unanimity; the Polish know

about that, as Poland disappeared in the 18th century because of the unanimity rule in the Polish

Parliament: that is history and reality. The same could happen in Europe if we continue with this

unanimity rule. We have to abolish it. Colleagues, this is the real problem. Why is there such a

problem in this crisis? Because the Member States are reluctant to transfer new sovereignty and

powers to the European Union. We all know that the only way out of this crisis is a new transfer of

powers to the European Union and to the European institutions. That is at stake.

Mr Barroso, I am pleased with a number of the initiatives that you have announced today. They are

key to my group. You have said that we shall take an initiative in the coming weeks on eurobonds.

You have already found a new name: stability bonds. No problem. You can call them what you like –

eurobonds, stability bonds – if they are bonds to mutualise debts and, as you have indicated, to make

and create more discipline – not only solidarity – in the Union. Very well, we look forward to this in

the coming weeks. You have said that we shall put proposals on the table to organise economic

governance beyond the six pack. I think this is necessary and is a first step to real economic and fiscal

union. You have also said that you should reflect on the external single representation of the

eurozone at international level.

However, what I am asking is that you go further than this and that in the coming two weeks, at the

European Council on 17 October, you put a global plan on the table of the Council. Why do you have

to do that? Because otherwise they take their own initiatives in the Council. You have the right of

initiative; they do not. If you do not use your right of initiative by putting a document on the table

with these different initiatives in it, others will fill the vacuum.

This should be done on three specific topics. First of all, the organisation of the real economic

government inside the Commission. You have said here that we are the real economic government,

but the reality is different. Mr Juncker, Mr Van Rompuy, Mr Rehn, Mr Barroso, the President of the

European Central Bank, we have at least five people who represent Europe. We need one, and it can

only be a senior Commissioner that you have to appoint. Make him European Minister of Finance

and then all this discussion of who is representing the euro would be over.

Secondly, I missed one important element in your proposals. There is a European plan to recapitalise

the European banks. The problem of the European banks has not been solved, and we shall not

recover from this recession or the stagnation or economic downturn if we do not first of all recreate

trust between the banks and recapitalise them. Only a European solution can solve this. I know that

Mrs Merkel refused that proposal on 4 October 2008. She heard on the radio that there were some

problems with a German bank. So you see what history can signify: if she had heard that news maybe

three hours before, she would have accepted the solution of a European rescue plan for banks.

But let us come back to this. Mr Barroso, my request to you is that you put all this in a document on

the table of the Council in two weeks’ time. We cannot do it as a European Parliament. The European

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Council cannot do it. You have the power, you have the right of initiative, and I can tell you that this

whole Parliament will be behind you if you take such an action.

5V

Mr President, the State of the Union means, first of all, looking back and learning the lessons of the

past, and then looking to the future. Let us be honest with ourselves and say that last year was a very

difficult year for the Union.

It was a difficult year for the Union because there were big problems, but little unity to solve those

problems. Greece was on the brink of collapse, the euro itself was under attack for months, and it

took several months for the European governments to finally agree to save a Member State and to

save our common currency. It is therefore no surprise to me, nor, I think, to others here in

Parliament, that public confidence in Europe has dropped dramatically.

You can see this in the latest Eurobarometer, which shows that less than half of our citizens think

that their country’s membership is a good thing. Trust in our institutions dropped last year to 42%.

This is the State of the Union today. That is alarming but, at the same time, we have to recognise that

it is not surprising. Parliament urged European leaders many times to end the standstill on Europe, to

move forward, to quit protectionism and nationalism and to work on European solutions.

That is also what the European citizens are asking for because, if you look at the same

Eurobarometer, you see that no less than 86% of the public want European economic governance.

They believe that only the Union can provide solutions to the financial and economic crisis. However,

they do not see this happening today, and that is the reason for their disappointment in our Union.

I know that for the Commission, too, it has been a difficult year, because in fact, it has only been half

a year. That is how long it has taken our capitals to realise that there is a new treaty and a new way

of working, and also a new balance of power in the Union. We can therefore say that today is the real

start of the President of the Commission’s second term.

It is a second term that needs a new vision and also new answers. It is, in any case, time to change

into a higher gear, and to realise important reforms now. From the point of view of our group, there

are principally seven big, important reforms.

The first thing to do is to finalise our response to the financial crisis. We have already produced

legislation on capital requirements and on bonuses. We have the stress test, and last week we also

reached an agreement on financial supervision, which is a good agreement, not least because

leadership by the President of the European Central Bank guarantees a European approach to

supervision.

However, that does not mean that we are already there. Far from it, I should say. We are not even

half way. We still need the Commission to come forward urgently with proposals on derivatives, on

short-selling, on credit rating agencies, on banking resolution, on market abuse, on trading and on

financial instruments.

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The second big task is that we need genuine European economic governance. Last year showed that

a common currency without a common economic policy simply does not make sense. That is a

nonsensical situation – even worse, it is a dangerous situation. We cannot afford to be one Union

and, at the same time, to have 27 different economic strategies, as we do today.

It is crystal clear that if we want the Stability and Growth Pact and the new economic strategy to be a

success, we need a serious carrot and stick approach, with proper sanctions.

In my opinion – and I think in the opinion of the majority of this House – it is good that the Council is

thinking about this in connection with a task force, but that cannot replace the right of initiative of

the Commission, and the duty of the Commission to come forward as fast as possible with a global

legislative proposal on economic governance.

I am pleased that you have announced that you will do this on 29 September. What happens in the

Council as well is not important. It is your task and it is your duty to do this on 29 September.

That takes me to my third priority: the single market. We have an excellent report on this by Mario

Monti, and our message is very simple: let us act on this report. Because it is incomprehensible, for

example, that today it still takes more than 40 hours to travel by train from central and eastern

European countries to Brussels, Paris or Amsterdam. How are these people supposed to feel

connected to the European Union? How can these markets be fully integrated? Let us invest in trans-

European networks.

The fourth important priority, and maybe the most important message for today, concerns the

budget and the new financial framework. Let us be very clear about this. The aim of some national

governments to reduce the budget by 20% or 30% is ridiculous at a time when what is needed is

more European solutions.

I can fully understand that, when confronted with a huge fiscal deficit, they want to cut their direct

contributions to the Union. That is a normal, spontaneous reaction. Hence, our proposal to replace

these national contributions with European own resources.

That takes me to the fifth priority: our credibility in the world. We have the External Action Service,

but what we need now, and what we have asked Lady Ashton, the Vice-President of the Commission

(it would be better if she were here), is also to develop a new strategy for the Union. Our external

policy strategy is still based on a paper by Javier Solana dating from 2003. The world has changed

since 2003, and our strategic framework should also be adapted and modernised.

That brings me to climate change. In Copenhagen, we lost our leadership role, and the only way to

make a difference in Cancún is to regain that leadership. To regain our leadership, one thing is

necessary: to use one voice and promote one vision, and not 27 as we did in Copenhagen.

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6V

Mr President, I understand that it is forbidden to look at Mr Kamall, but anyway I am going to

surprise Mr Kamall, because essentially I am in agreement with him on the critical points he has

made on the proposal that is on the table.

I do not deny that we need practical and technical arrangements with Turkey as part of a global

approach, but this is not a practical or technical arrangement. It is a deal with Turkey in which we

outsource our problems. It is a deal in which we are, in fact, giving the entrance keys to the gates of

Europe into the hands of Turkey, to the successors of the Ottoman Empire, to Erdoğan – should even

say maybe to Sultan Erdoğan. He shall now decide on the entrance into the European Union.

Because what is the deal in fact? The deal is that we are blocking, collectively, entrance to the

European Union for Syrians and for other people, and it is Turkey which shall decide, on an individual

basis, who is a refugee who can enter, in a trade-off, one to one. Some Syrians will maybe enter but,

for example, Afghanis who are fleeing from IS in Afghanistan, may not. A Kurd who wants to leave

Iraq or maybe another country shall certainly not be allowed to enter under that scheme. I have to

tell you I am on the same side as Mr Kamall for once. I find this deal hugely problematic because it is

a type of collective refoulement and, in my eyes, this is forbidden by the Geneva Convention.

Moreover, you have to know, dear colleagues, that Turkey is a very poor member of the Geneva

Convention. It has ratified a number of protocols. One example is that Turkey does not give political

asylum to Syrians; it only gives political asylum to refugees from countries belonging to the Council of

Europe. Secondly, it does not give asylum, for example, to victims of internal civil conflicts, such as

the conflict raging for the moment in the south—east of Turkey. So I think it is hugely problematic to

ask a country which has not fully accepted all the protocols of the Geneva Convention to do the

business. It is like the Americans saying to the Mexicans, you manage the borders in the future. That

is what we are doing. I think it is hugely problematic.

Secondly, while I understand the reasoning – which Mr Dombrovskis and Mrs Plasschaert repeated

this morning – that this is the way to stop the smugglers and the only way to stop human trafficking, I

am absolutely not of that opinion. I think the opposite will happen. By reducing the entrance points

to the European Union in such a narrow way as we are doing now, by giving only Turkey the

possibility on an individual basis to grant entry to the European Union, desperate refugees are going

to look to alternative routes and in a few weeks we will have again a debate in this Parliament about

the revival of the Lampedusa route. We are going to have a debate about a new route in Albania, a

new route via Malta, a new route in Bulgaria and it will not solve the problem because the problem

cannot be solved by others, by third countries, but it has to be solved by us, the European Union.

That is what we lack at the moment.

My plea to you, Mr Dombrovskis and Mrs Plasschaert, is to now do what is necessary on the next

count. First, take a decision on the European border and coast guard. It is fantastic that you tell us we

are making progress, but we have been making progress for months. Why not use Article 78,

paragraph 3 of the Treaty? Article 78 gives you the possibility to take emergency measures in case of

an influx into the European Union of refugees and of migrants, but you are not doing it. You do not

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need legislation from this Parliament and the Council. You can do it based on the actual Treaty. Do it.

Start with this border guards on the border with Greece and Turkey. Secondly, as for the EUR 3

billion, how many times are we going to decide on the EUR 3 billion? Can the Member States perhaps

pay the EUR 3 billion for once and pay it not through the Turkish authorities, not through Turkey’s

NGOs, but directly in the camps to the refugees so that they no longer have to live with USD 7 per

month. That is the reason they come to us, because they have to survive with USD 7 a month. We

have to put this EUR 3 billion into direct financial aid to the refugees.

Finally, what we also need to do is to strengthen our asylum system, and change the Dublin system.

You know what we are doing, in fact? We are not changing the Dublin system now. No. We have put

Turkey inside the Dublin system. That is what we have decided, instead of changing the Dublin

system definitely and making a fair share between the Member States of the European Union.

So, in the beginning I was of the opinion that maybe this deal could help, but the more I look at it, the

more I am critical of it, and the more sceptical I am. I have one plea to Mrs Plasschaert: ask Mr Tusk

to redo and remake his copy and to go for real European action.

7V

This crisis is an existential crisis. Let us face the reality, this multiple crisis – and I know that a number

of people in this House will like this – puts the existence of the European project itself in danger. If

tomorrow the euro disappears or if Schengen falls apart, then what are we left with in Europe? Only

a loose confederation of nation-states? We will be weak economically, and insignificant on the world

stage. That will be the result.

And let us not be naive. It will be the Americans and the Chinese who will dictate our economic

standards here in Europe; and it will be Assad and Putin who will decide on peace and stability in

Europe. (As Putin already finances some right-wing parties in Europe, maybe that is the normal turn

of events.)

What I want to make clear in this debate today with you, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande,

is that the source and origin of every one of these crises is in fact exactly the same: it is a lack of

common governance; it is a lack of shared sovereignty. It is the lack of unity in Europe that is the

cause of the crisis.

And Mr Legutko, you say ‘Yes, Europe is the problem’ and ‘Europe creates and solves the problems’,

but when 20 million citizens in the 19th and 20th centuries were slaughtered in Europe it was not

because of ‘Europe’, it was because of nationalism and populism.

We cannot overcome the refugee crisis and we cannot keep Schengen if we do not have a common

asylum policy, a common migration policy and common border and coastguard control. We cannot

overcome the euro crisis without one government for the euro and one treasury. We cannot

overcome our economic weaknesses if we do not liberate ourselves of 28 national regulators in all

the markets of the future – digital, energy and capital. And we shall not overcome our geopolitical

insignificance if we do not embrace real foreign policy in Europe, a single representation in the

international institutions and, at the very least, a defence community in the European Union.

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To achieve this in the final years of this decade, and to make sure that this decade does not become

a lost decade for a number of people and for the European project, I think we have to change three

bad attitudes: firstly,l’Europe à la carte ; secondly, the step-by-step approach that we embrace; and,

thirdly, our clouded and outdated view of the world.

First of all, l’Europe à la carte . There is not one Union. What are you talking about? There are at least

10 unions. There is ‘the 28’, there is Schengen, there is the euro, there is the patent, there are the

opt-ins and the opt-outs, the enhanced cooperation, the derogations – it is chaos at the moment –

and Europe needs one strong heart to survive in the future.

Secondly, the step-by-step approach: maybe it worked in the good times in the past, but not in the

modern world. It is always too little too late. From time to time, in every society, you have to take a

big leap forward, to adapt yourself and to resolve all the resistance to necessary change – as France

did, for example, after the Revolution when it kicked out an old autocratic regime and created the

rule of law, and what Germany did when it created the Zollverein and became a modern economy,

the powerhouse of Europe in the economic field. That is also what we need at the European level.

I have only one appeal to you, Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande, which might not be in the

name of the whole Parliament but in the name of a big majority here: I call upon you to meet this

challenge together with us, the European Parliament. It is your historic responsibility to do that,

exactly like your predecessors did 25 years ago. Look a bit more closely into this historic task, even if

you are facing some less important electoral challenges in the near future.

8V

Nevertheless, dear colleagues, I think the war or the absence of it was once the only argument for

Europe and European integration. Today that is no longer the case. Let us be honest about it. We will

not convince the younger generation just by pointing to a horrible but distant past. We need to

explain to them how Europe and European integration is a tool for a better future and to keep that

peace on our continent, in our own countries, in the Balkans and in our neighbourhood in Ukraine.

But we are not here today to reflect, I think, on the political arguments for further European

integration. We are here to remember what binds us: the values of peace and cooperation. Values

which were not European values one hundred years ago. They were not European values, they

became European values; they became European principles and they have become our binding

principles over time.

Never again, nie wieder, plus jamais : two simple words expressing a whole history and a hope for the

future and today we have the certainty that our children will not be sent into battle against each

other. It is an absurd thought, it is an important thought, it is progress in the true sense of the word

and therein lays also the greatest challenge I think for mankind.

So my wish for Europe is that we will be able to persevere with such progress. To secure such an

immense leap forward; to leave our petty differences behind, to leave nationalism and populism

behind and work on the basis of what binds us as Europeans, because this simple insight is the

driving force behind progress and is the engine of humanity.

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That is why this commemoration matters, even if none of us ever has to live through a war because

war today between us has become unthinkable, has become impossible and has become also the

reason why we must continue our quest: the quest for peace, the quest for a better future and that

means the quest for Europe.

9V

Mr President, I can tell you that the position of the Liberal Group is not one of abstention, it is a clear

‘yes’ for the new Commission. Have a little courage please, Mr Kamall, at the start of this new

Commission! We need clear statements and clear positions.

We had a lengthy discussion yesterday in our group, and our conclusion was that we will support this

Commission as part of the pro-European coalition that also supported you, Mr Juncker, when you

were appointed President of this Commission. This Commission has not received our support for

free, however. We expect a different Commission from the previous one. We expect a Commission

with ambition, a Commission with vision, a Commission that can lead us out of the crisis. We do not

expect more of what we have seen over the past five years, namely a Commission that became,

more and more, the secretariat of the Council, a Commission that waited first for the green light

from Paris and Berlin – or rather, Berlin and Paris, to reverse the order – before it acted.

To give you one example, we are still waiting in this Parliament, five years after the start of the

financial crisis, for the legislative package on economic governance. That is the reason why we are

giving you our support: to change the way that the Commission is operating and to return to the

Community method and lead us out of the crisis.

More precisely, what we hope to see from your Commission are three specific things. The first is a

credible strategy on investment and growth. And I hope, colleagues, that we can end the stupid

discussion we have had for five years with some saying that discipline is more important and others

saying that investment is more important. Can somebody, perhaps, tell us that both are important,

and that you do not have to make a choice between fiscal discipline, one the one hand, and

investment and growth, on the other hand? It is impossible to have investment and growth without

fiscal discipline and it is – as you said, Mr Juncker – impossible to have economic growth in the future

without good, sound public finances.

I hope that Mr Katainen comes up with a plan as soon as possible. You are talking about EUR 300

billion, mostly from repackaging, but you know what the problems are. The problem is that the

investment gap today in Europe is not EUR 300 billion. The investment gap in Europe is currently

more than EUR 800 billion. Close to one trillion is lacking in investment – private mainly – in our

infrastructure, in digital, in the energy grid, in transport and in innovation. I hope that, in the coming

months, you can come forward with a credible strategy and a plan for closing that gap – but not in

the traditional way of saying ‘Yes, we will increase a little the amount of capital in European

investment.’ You need to come forward with a credible strategy like Delors did to create the internal

market for consumer goods. We need a new way forward in the integration of the European Union,

in digital, in energy, in innovation and in our capital markets, which are not unified at the moment.

That is what we are waiting for, and we need it as soon as possible.

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The second thing is: can this new structure work? We have always been in favour of coordination and

clustering, and I hope it can work, but I have to tell you that I have doubts about it. In a marriage it is

very clear: you do not decide everything together. In my marriage, I decide the questions of peace

and war, and my wife does the finances, so there is a clear division of power, but I do not know

whether appointing two Commissioners for the Stability Pact is the way forward. I think it could be a

source of problems, though I hope it is not because I am very much in favour of coordinating and

clustering.

I hope, in any case, that we will not see internal battles in your Commission. We had a long deadlock

in the European Union with discussions between Paris and Berlin on the Union’s future strategy. We

cannot afford to have a deadlock because Mr Dombrovskis and Mr Moscovici have different opinions

about the application of the Stability Pact and about future strategy. I want us to look at this

question closely and I want you, Mr Juncker, to intervene immediately if such a deadlock exists.

Lastly, the new Commissioners should also be unequivocal on European values. There is a problem

there. You have already indicated the problem. Mr Navracsics may be competent to be a

Commissioner, but perhaps not with the portfolio you assigned to him. You announced a few

minutes ago that he should no longer be responsible for citizenship. I think that is a step forward, but

does it solve the whole problem? I do not think so.

Yesterday you received a letter from Mr Bernard Foccroulle, the director of the music festival of Aix-

en-Provence, in the name of a long list of eminent European artists, painters, composers, actors,

architects and directors of opera houses and theatres. I want to tell you that we fully back the

content of that letter.

If you do not have other proposals to make, I hope that the structure you have established in your

Commission, with Vice-Presidents coordinating and controlling the work of the other Commissioners,

will also apply to the portfolio of Mr Navracsics, and that Mr Navracsics, in doing his job, will be

under the control of the different Vice-Presidents of the Commission responsible for civil liberties.

That said, the credibility of this Commission is not only a question of economics. It is also a question

of values, because Europe is also about democracy and about human values.

10V

Mr President, I think that we can say that it is an historic day. Not because of all the rhetoric we have

heard this morning, but because we stand here to elect the President of the Commission and not, as

was the case until now, by mainly rubber-stamping the choice of the Council. We participated in that

both of us, dear Jean-Claude. This time it is the voters in fact who have the last word and I think that

by voting for Mr Juncker today – let us say it, let us say it openly, it is difficult for a certain part of this

Parliament to accept it – but by doing so we establish once and for all real European democracy in

which the voters are deciding what is happening …

… and it is not by accident that it is happening. It is the result of the long, long way that we have

walked together, it is the result of the Convention we established in 2001 and – let me say it very

openly – it is also the result of the perseverance of a number of parliamentarians, of at least two

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dedicated Europeans that I want to mention today in this debate: Andrew Duff and Elmar Brok,

Andrew who is no longer here and Elmar who will always be here in my opinion. But I have to tell you

for once he is not here. Normally he is always there – on 199 – but they are still fighting with each

other about who in fact invented this proposal in the Convention to elect the Commission by the

European Parliament.

So my first message of today – I have to tell you, Jean-Claude – is not so much for you. My message

today is for those Members, mainly in the big groups, who intend to vote against you. And I want to

tell these people in these two big groups, and maybe in other groups, that by doing so what they are

doing is intending to side with the anti-Europeans. In fact failing their voters, because what their

voters are asking – that is their choice, and the choice made by them fell on Mr Juncker – should be

followed. I find the irony of today is that today in fact the anti-Europeans like Mr Kamall would deny

the choice of the voters and apparently prefer the old system of backroom deals which Mr Cameron

likes so much.

So today by voting for you we are giving a clear green light because you have taken on board a

number of our proposals. The main proposal is that we have to stop this choice of what I call

‘austerity or growth’ – as though there was an opposition between them. Everybody knows that we

need both of them and after five years I hope that you will lead a Commission doing both – that is

fiscal discipline on the one hand and a growth pact on the other hand. Because we all know that

without fiscal discipline, without respect for the Stability Pact, there is no growth possible in the

medium term and we have to accept that. On the other hand we know also that if we want to have

growth we have to go beyond the fiscal discipline and we have to have a growth package, as has

been proposed now in your programme.

The second reason, Mr Juncker, why we are pleased with your programme and we shall support you,

is that you also say a number of things on migration, legal migration – finally we are talking about

that; it was a forbidden area in the European Union until now – and also about values, and that you

will entrust a Commissioner with specific responsibility for the rule of law. However, I have to

contradict you on one thing, and that is, whatever the diversity of our constitutional systems or our

cultural traditions, fundamental rights are fundamental. We cannot discuss them. If they are

fundamental values everybody has to respect them, whatever the traditions are in the European

Union.

And the third commitment that you are making, and it was an important point for us, is the fact that

you will have a real gender-balanced Commission, and let us hope that you can also achieve that

goal.

Finally, Mr Juncker, I want to ask you three things because you will now be leading the Commission.

Three things: first of all, return – you have said it yourself – to the Community method, because all

the intergovernmental arrangements we have made in the last five years were not an example of

good governance for Europe. Secondly, my most important point, please don’t do as your

predecessor did: use your right of initiative. Don’t start to phone Berlin, Paris and then London and

Rome before putting a legislative package on the table of the Council and the Parliament. Do it

because your Commission is ready to do it, has the courage to do it and not because there is a

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decision of the European Council. And do not listen only to the European Council. From time to time

– why not every day? – listen to the European Parliament too, because we are equal as an institution.

And finally, create again a vision for Europe. That we need. You feel that when you see a number of

people, they are lost in Europe, because the vision is no longer there. Create the vision that it is only

by more integration of the European Union that we can emerge from the crisis, like we did in the 80s.

And if you are doing that I can tell you that you will find us by your side all the way. All 68, Mr

Commissioner.

11V

Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his strong pro-European

message at the end of his speech. We believe very strongly in this Greek Presidency, because Greece

is the symbol of Europe – I should say for better and for worse.

Your country gave the name of Europe to our beautiful continent but – let us be honest – in recent

years your country has also represented the biggest threat or crisis that the Union has ever faced.

You could even say, as you did yourself (so I can repeat it), that the Greek crisis is in a way the

quintessence of the European crisis. For a long period there was a lack of discipline, of solidarity and,

most importantly I think, of unity. Let us be clear: I do not think we would have had a Greek crisis or a

European crisis if the political class in Greece had taken responsibility far earlier than they did and, at

the same time, if European leaders and the European national elites had shown full solidarity from

the beginning of the crisis in 2009. It has to be said that both failed in that respect, and that is why

we have this tragedy today. For it is a tragedy, with huge unemployment, and young people in

Europe at the moment saying that they want to leave Europe. They no longer see their future within

the European Union. There is also rising populism and nationalism, and growing racism.

Let us also be realistic about the figures that we have seen, and that we can see today, in the

economic field. Personally I expect a long period of low economic growth, rather like that faced by

the Japanese in the 1990s. I expect nothing less, but nothing more either. That is a tragedy, because

this crisis is a European crisis rather than a world crisis. China, India and the US are all growing. Japan

has a growth figure of more than 2 %, and fortunately even the African continent has growth figures

of 5-6 %. So there is collective responsibility here on the part of the European leadership and – let us

face it – also of the Greek political class for what has happened in recent years in Europe.

First of all, the Greek political class was at fault because reforms were undertaken too late. Greece

still has a clientelist system, an oversized civil service, huge state ownership and professions which

are closed to newcomers. Instead of carrying out reforms in these areas, the only measures taken –

certainly in the beginning – were the moderation of lower wages and tax increases for small and

medium-sized companies. So I hope the necessary reforms can now go forward and that you will not

revert to the failed recipes of the past.

However, we have also made mistakes ourselves. I think the most important error – and we have to

recognise this today, before the Greek Presidency – was made in December 2009 by not immediately

backing Greece, and it was compounded in January 2010 by talking openly about a Greek exit. That

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gave rise to grave consequences, with a long period of financial instability. The two-year period of

financial instability in Europe was created because we were not more open and solid with Greece.

We gave the impression that countries could leave the eurozone and that countries could even leave

the euro system and the European Union.

Mr Samaras, although it is perhaps cynical to say this, you are in a quite unique position. You are now

in the Greek Presidency, and you can apply all the lessons you learned in Greece to reforming the

European Union. You are in the best position to tell your colleagues that they should not make the

same mistakes and that they need to create a Banking Union. You know what the consequences are

of a lack of European union and a lack of unity.

My request to you is that you prioritise three things. The first is Banking Union. I will not repeat what

Joseph Daul and Hannes Swoboda have said. I am sorry, but the proposal that we have today is not a

proposal that will create confidence in the banking sector. You know that the main problem for the

moment in Europe is a blocked mechanism for transfer between the banks and the real economy.

You will not restore that transfer mechanism if we do not establish a real Banking Union with a single

resolution mechanism based not on national resolutions but on the proposal from the Commission.

We are united here in our refusal to accept an intergovernmental patchwork. It has to be a

communitarian proposal, and you have to go to Berlin: it is there that you have to convince people of

the need to put in place another vision and another opinion.

Secondly, we need a new economic governance model: a model for convergence, not divergence;

not contractual arrangements that create animosity against Europe, but a convergence system.

My third and final point is a request to you to speed up the integration of our markets: the single

market, the telecoms market, the bond market and also the labour market. We need more labour

mobility. Labour mobility in Europe is only 2.8 %, while in the United States it is three times more

than that. At the moment we have more than two million vacancies because of lack of labour

mobility. Mr Farage, meanwhile, came here and said we had a problem. He said that 2.8 % was too

high and that it had to be lower. He wants to block labour mobility. A number of you want to block

growth creation. I can only say, in conclusion, that it was lucky – or maybe it was bad luck – that at

the time when Mr Farage’s ancestors crossed the Channel he was not in charge of the immigration

laws, because otherwise they would never have reached Britain and he would never have been a

British citizen.

12V

Mr President, let us come back to reality. Yesterday interest rates in the bond market rose to 7.05%

for Italy. Yesterday the interest rates for Spain were 6.27% and 3.6% for France.

France has triple-A status – exactly the same as Germany – but the reality in the markets is that

France has to pay double the interest rates of Germany. As I am always saying, I do not know what

these ratings from the rating agencies mean, but they certainly have no effect on interest rates,

because today France has double that of Germany.

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It is obvious that the euro crisis has reached a very dangerous point, a decisive point where

everything is possible, even the most dramatic scenario. We are at a point where countries which are

Europe’s third and fourth economies have interest rates of nearly 7% – which is not sustainable – and

where the second biggest economy is paying double that of the benchmark, Germany.

We first have to recognise that we have to go beyond the decisions of 21 July and 26 October 2011 if

we want to deal with this crisis. It is very good, Joseph, that France and Germany meet each other

from time to time – they do it every two weeks – but it is not sustainable and it is not convincing for

the markets. Their decisions only calm the markets for 24 hours. After 24 hours everything starts

again.

What we need is not the combining of two important countries in the euro area, but to stand behind

the global approach of the Commission. My message today is that we must ask the Commission to

formalise this package as fast as possible. Maybe a number of new elements are needed, but what

the Commission must do is put an act formalising an economic and fiscal union on the table for the

Council and the Parliament: we are not only talking about the package, we should formalise and

legalise this economic and fiscal union.

That is the only way we can end the euro crisis of today. Do not think that a new two-day summit or

a new combined effort by the two big countries can stop it. We need other more formalised,

legalised initiatives.

What we need is economic governance based on the European Commission. I propose that we

should end this discussion of who should chair the Euro Group and so on. If we are to have a Vice-

President who is responsible for the euro, let him also share the Euro Group. Let us not continue to

multiply functions inside the European Union and inside the euro area. That is the first thing.

Let us have a convergence code. Let us have this Green Paper and decisions on the Green Paper. I

hope that the Green Paper on stability bonds can be put before Parliament in the coming days. Let us

also look into the very important proposal made two days ago by the five wise economists of the

German Council of Economic Experts. What they have proposed, in a paper directly addressed to

Ms Merkel and the German Government, is to create what could be called a European collective

redemption fund to neutralise debts of above 60% in the euro area, combined with a bold debt

reduction scheme, for countries who are not using the EFSF.

That is a fund of EUR 2.3 trillion to stabilise the euro crisis. Together with the EFSF that means that

you have firepower of EUR 3.3 trillion, based on eurobonds. Was it the federalists who proposed that

to the Parliament? No, it was the five wise economists who are the direct advisors of Ms Merkel and

of the German Government. Now is the time to do something about that. Beyond the 60% threshold,

there is only one solution to this crisis, and it is the eurobond market.

Finally, a word on the question of whether we need a Treaty change. I think many things are possible

without a Treaty change. Many things can be done with today’s existing Treaty. But if we are to have

Treaty change, then we also need a convention before this Parliament.

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13V

Mr President, let us be very open and blunt about this: what we have seen in recent weeks on this

issue has been shameful – Italy issuing temporary residence permits to refugees from Tunisia, then

France reacting by reintroducing internal border checks, as if the European Union had suddenly

ceased to exist.

Let us be very open and call this by its name: it was a ping-pong game by two governments, and by

Berlusconi and Sarkozy, on the back of refugees who are, in fact, in trouble. That is what has been

happening and, in my opinion, it has been disastrous not only for Schengen but also for the European

Union and its image because the reintroduction of internal border checks contradicts the whole

essence of the Union and the basic principles of the Treaty. That point has been made several times

here and Mr Barroso has also made it.

Moreover, what occurred was absolutely out of proportion. I would not go so far as to echo

Mr Schulz in calling this a marginal problem – 27 000 Tunisians do not constitute a marginal problem

– but he is right to say that, by comparison with, for example, the 350 000 people who fled from

Kosovo during the Kosovo war, we are clearly not talking about a migration tsunami.

And so we come to the problem: the communication from the Commission. In my opinion, it was not

very clear. The communication states that, as a last resort in truly critical situations, a mechanism

may need to be introduced – and, as I read it, that means a new mechanism – allowing for a

coordinated and temporary reintroduction of controls.

That is the problem with the whole communication because, if this means that the Commission is

proposing an additional possibility for the reintroduction of border controls, not provided for in the

existing Schengen acquis, I can tell you that our Group will fight such a proposal with all available

means, and I hope the entire Parliament will do likewise.

If, on the contrary, the sentence in question means that the Commission wants to restrict the current

provision, then that has been foreseen: national security and public order are the two elements

covered by the existing Schengen acquis.

If the intended meaning is that the Commission wants to restrict the current provision allowing

Member States to reintroduce border controls, then, Mr Barroso, you can have 100% support from

our Group.

So, what I am asking of Ms Malmström and Mr Barroso is a rewriting of the communication and

specifically of the sentence which states that a new mechanism shall be introduced for the

reintroduction of border checks. All they need to do is to state that they will strengthen the existing

provision in the Schengen acquis.

20V

Mr President, I want first of all to associate myself, and also my group, with what has been said by

the Prime Minister and by Mr Barroso on the attack in Boston.

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Thank you also, Prime Minister, for your speech. I know that you are an expert in fighting

euroscepticism, because you have to deal with the True Finns and you know how to tackle them. But

let us be honest: this may be a good opportunity to recognise that this debate with you is no longer a

Finnish problem alone, and not even a traditional British phenomenon, this euroscepticism that we

see rising.

Two days ago, as we all know, a new political party was established in Germany – the Alternative für

Deutschland , which is a eurosceptic party, a party who want Germany out of the euro. In my

opinion, what they are calling for is not an alternative for Germany. I think there is a better name for

it: they are in fact proposing suicide for Germany. In any case, I think it what they are proposing is

stupidity, be it by splitting the euro in two circles – a north one or a south one – or by returning to

the old national currencies. In any case, what they are proposing is a breakup of the euro.

Well, colleagues – and I think this is a good moment to underline this – if there is one country which

should fear such a scenario and one country in Europe which would suffer from such a scenario, I

think it is Germany. What the Alternative for Germany is in fact putting forward means, in my

opinion, a tragedy not only for Europe but also for Germany: it is the breakdown of the German

export machine, and it could be the end of the German miracle instead of something else.

I am not just saying that, Mr President. I am saying it because there is proof of this. I have here the

study produced by ING – which is the second largest bank in Holland – by their branch in London, so

it has been produced in London – in the City of London. Where can you do such an analysis better

than there? And what the independent analysis, produced in the City of London, shows is that the

breakup of the euro would create an economic meltdown in Europe, and that the first victim of that

would be Germany, naturally.

What are the figures in that study? My suggestion is that you make 18 million copies of it within the

European Parliament and send it to every German citizen. You can do it personally.

21V

Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the Chancellor for his inspiring speech. I think this is a

good time to talk about the future of Europe and to hear a net contributor giving some good

arguments against another net contributor from the other side of the Channel. You can see that one

net contributor is not the same as another.

I have to say – and, Mr Faymann, I think you mentioned this in an interview a few days ago – that I

can also see a lot of confusion about the future of Europe across the Channel. This is not because of

the traditional fog but because apparently Mr Cameron is having difficulty in agreeing with himself

on the content. But he has already made an agreement with himself on the date and the place for his

‘historic’ speech. It has to be a historic speech on Friday on the future of Europe, ‘better’ than

Margaret Thatcher’s speech in Bruges. Nevertheless I read once again the speech Margaret Thatcher

gave in Bruges in 1988. I have to tell you that it was a very pro-European speech. She said and I

quote, ‘We have to do more together’. That is exactly the opposite of what Mr Cameron wants to do

on Friday.

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Let me, in this debate and in the presence of Mr Faymann, reply to Mr Cameron because we already

know what he will say on Friday. I think that I can say in the name of the majority in this House that

there can be no question about an individual renegotiation by a single Member State, not by Britain

and not by any other country in the European Union.

There is a simple reason for that. We need one European Union, a single European Union, and not a

European Union à la carte as we have today with the opt-ins, opt-outs, derogations, exceptions and

rebates. Believe me, I think that what is killing the Union today is that Union à la carte. You have a

Union of the six, that is the founding fathers. You have the Union of the 12, that is the minimum

number required to start with the fiscal compact. You have the Union of the 15 and you have the

Union of the 17, that is the euro area. You also have the Union of the 25, which is the European

patent and Schengen, and we have the ‘normal’ Union, the Union of the 27.

You have to recognise that the Union is a strange animal. Some Member States are not obliged to

participate in Union policies, whereas other countries, outside the Union, are invited and allowed to

participate in our policies. Take Schengen as an example. Switzerland is part of Schengen but Britain,

part of the Union, is not part of Schengen. How can you explain that to citizens? A Europe à la carte

where you pick and choose. Well, I can tell you that a renegotiation by the UK and by any other

country can only make this worse.

Moreover, I think that a European Union à la carte, as Mr Cameron will tell us on Friday, can only kill

the single market. If you can pick and choose, what will be left of the single market? For example if

the French say that they like industrial policy and that they do not like the competition rules or the

Germans say that they like the single market in goods but not the single market in services, what will

be left of the single market? Let us be honest and let Mr Cameron be honest about it. A renegotiation

of the kind he wants means in fact either a ‘Brexit’ or the end of the single market and in fact the end

of the European Union.

Colleagues, this is not in the interests of our citizens and certainly not in the interests of British

citizens because it can only lead to the disappearance of the single market or to second-class

membership for Britain, something between Mr Cameron and Norway and Switzerland, countries

that pay but have no say. I think that this is stupidity for a country with 53% of its exports going to

the continent and to the rest of Europe. It is so stupid that Britain’s best friend, the US, has not been

able to understand it at all in recent days and weeks.

Let me conclude. We do not need an individual renegotiation to reduce what we have in common.

What we need is exactly the opposite of what Mr Cameron will tell us on Friday. We need a common

effort to establish a more integrated Europe because, if we want to face all the challenges which Mr

Faymann rightly mentioned in his speech, only with a more integrated Europe can we face these

challenges, and not with individual renegotiations by one or other Member State of the Union.

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Appendix 6: Coded corpora for quantitative data The file (named ‘Supportive data.hpr7’) with the coded corpora is included in the zip folder that is

digitally attached to this thesis and/or on the CD ROM that comes with this thesis. A version of the

coding that is readable outside of Atlas.ti is also included. The coding of the past tense is also

included in both of these formats. Another insanely big, chaotic file that includes all sorts of other

codings related to other checklist categories which are irrelevant to this research, can also be

requested by contacting me on my university email address.

Index for interpreting the Atlas.ti-file For most codes, the code name corresponds with the word it codes (e.g. an occurrence of the word

‘crisis’ is coded with the code ‘Crisis’).

The frequencies that are shown in this research are generated by using the code-primary documents

table in Atlas.ti (Analysis -> Codes-Primary document table). To generate these frequencies, select

the primary-document family of each politician and the codes one wishes to get an overview of.

Some exceptions and oddities:

‘nation-state’/’nation’ is coded under the code named ‘nation’ and not as ‘Nation [SN1]’. That last

code can be ignored.

Intensifiers are coded as ‘INTENS’.

Names for nations are coded under the supercode ‘Nation names’. The occurrences of this code can

be viewed by double-clicking on this supercode in the code manager (Codes -> Code manager).

For the coding of past tense: the tagging in the documents is generated by the Standford POS Tagger.

These tags should be ignored, since they are not always correct. Only the code ‘past tense’ shows the

actual occurrences of past tense.

stylistic choices and perceived attitudes of nigel farage

Documents