Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-27-Speech-3-030"
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"en.19991027.1.3-030"2
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"Mr President, the issues discussed at Tampere are obviously of great concern to all decent law-abiding people: asylum, immigration, cross-border crime and not least the death-dealing drug-smuggling activities of the loathsome drug barons. Like disease, crime knows no borders. Therefore, there can be no good reason for opposing the meetings of Heads of State as has happened at Tampere to discuss these issues. However, one has to express a note of caution. The suspicion amongst many in the United Kingdom is that these issues and the high-minded pronouncements are yet another power play by stealth on the part of the EU and its institutions.
We have seen it all before: first the problem, a problem of huge legitimate, public and topical concern, then the meeting and then the solution. The central agenda is that whatever the problem, the solution is always the same. More power to the EU and its undemocratic institutions. The issue of asylum, immigration and cross-border crime and the administration of justice impact on the very fundamental issues of human rights and individual civil liberties.
What we are considering is vesting even more powers in the hands of the EU and the unelected bureaucrats to take control of our very liberties – the body which brought us the inestimable benefits of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy. Both are absolute disasters. British fishermen and farmers are now martyrs to the irresistible ambition of the European Union. Therefore, before we even think of passing more powers to the European Union, we must take into account its past activities and failures. Fishing and farming have been subjected to its most tried and tested policies: policies tested almost to destruction.
We should forget the theory, fellow delegates. Forget the high-minded pronouncements and look at the implications. If there were prizes for rhetoric, the EU would be a world-class performer. But when it comes to performance, the EU is the bottom of the class for efficiency. There is a yawning gap, an unbridgeable gap. So, when it comes to the issues of liberty, the EU cannot even sort out fishing or look after our farmers. Why should we trust it with our freedom and our security? Much more can be achieved by using existing national institutions and an international organisation…."@en1
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