EU must ditch 'bureaucratic machine' says Tajani

(ANSA) - Rome, May 23 - European Parliament President and Forza Italia member Antonio Tajani defended the EU's record on Thursday while recognising that the bloc needs to change and be less bureaucratic. "New thrust needs to be given to a project that has given us 70 years of peace and economic prosperity," Tajani told an ANSA Forum ahead of this week's European elections. "It has aged a little and needs new thrust.
    "It is necessary to go back to politics. Those who are elected should get out of their role in the bureaucratic machine, which at times has tried to replace the political arena and has become self-referential".
    Tajani told the Forum that he was ready to stand to keep his role at the helm of the European Parliament, if the European People's Party is central after the elections and nationalist forces are "isolated".