” “"A speech meant for the past rather than for the future": Brian Crowley, Irish MEP of the Nation Europe group, thus commented the speech addressed to the EU Assembly yesterday by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero. With reference to the parts dedicated by the speaker to the individual rights "to be granted" (such as marriage between people of the same sex), he added: "Europe must respect differences" between States and peoples", and "it’s not possible to make it a single model". According to Jaime Mayor Oreja, Spanish popular, it is necessary "to respect and strengthen the moral values of the Union". On the other hand, positive judgements on the "Europeanism" of Zapatero came from the socialist group leader, the German Martin Schulz, and English liberal democrat Graham Watson. As for the vice president of the parliament, the Italian popular Mario Mauro, he said to SIR: "Perverting the juridical figure of marriage in its substance means imposing society on the whole an irrational vision of things, imposing the dictatorship of relativism. There is nothing worse for the attempts and the efforts made every day to give more strength to the integration process". "It is not a conquest at all concluded Mauro; – this law is in clear opposition to the values of our Founding Fathers".” “
