Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-19-Speech-3-061"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate has been extraordinarily useful for the presidency, and we will bring together all the suggestions and comments that have been made here and examine them very carefully. During this presidency, we will be working a great deal with the European Parliament, and also with the Commission, with the High Representative, Javier Solana, and also with the Western European Union, of which we also hold the presidency at present. We hope that this cooperation will be fruitful in all areas. We will be taking away with us from here a conviction that the Portuguese Presidency’s basic framework has the support of a general consensus in the European Parliament, and this is important, in that it will encourage us to work in a more coherent way.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for reasons of time and because of the addition of a new item on the Middle East to your agenda, I absolutely cannot speak for any longer. However, I would like to conclude by saying that the presidency is delighted to have confirmed during this debate that there is general agreement with the basic principles we have put forward, and that we have been able, I believe, to define a
with the European Parliament. I am quite sure that this will make an important contribution to improving the general workings of the Council and Parliament.
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With regard to employment and innovation, this House is clearly extremely interested in the Special European Council in Lisbon. It is interested in – and committed to – the idea of making Europe an area of social cohesion and, at the same time, the most dynamic economic area in the world, in the century that has just dawned. This will enable Europe to cope with globalisation and to democratise information technology, by creating a knowledge economy free of the rules and stigma that govern a purely production-based economy. This also applies to enlargement, which is a historical milestone marking the end of the cold war and the building of a reunited Europe.
As regards Turkey, we will be rigorously examining this dossier in order to simultaneously carry out screening of the
apply the Copenhagen criteria and achieve the strategic objective of giving Turkey a fixed course for approximation as compared with Europe. I know that there are some doubts in the European Parliament about this, but I would also like to allay your fears by assuring you that any other policy would be even worse for Europe: it would be very negative and would have serious consequences for what we want to achieve as a Union, both internally and internationally.
Turning to the Intergovernmental Conference, I believe that it has been possible to achieve mutual trust between the presidency and Parliament in terms of involving Parliament in a more substantial and real way, with more continuity in the negotiating process. And we are open to this idea. In the letter that I sent to the President of the European Parliament at the start of the Portuguese Presidency, I was at pains to make it clear that we are willing, as a presidency, to take part in meetings of your Committee on Constitutional Affairs, or even in the plenary, if this House would, at some point, like an in-depth debate on the topics to be dealt with at the Intergovernmental Conference. This would comply with the separation of powers and the respective responsibilities of each institution whilst, I believe, stimulating the debate in Europe on institutional reform. We do not have any reservations at all about this kind of approach.
Nor do we have a closed mind about the Helsinki agenda. The very terms in which it was formulated make it possible to include certain new items. I discussed these items myself with colleagues during my tour of European capitals. The State Secretary for European Affairs will also be doing this now. I wrote to my European colleagues, the Foreign Ministers, at the beginning of January to ask them what items their respective governments saw as potential candidates for adding to the agenda of leftovers. The aim of this was to give us a clear picture of this issue at an early stage, in our presidency role and for the Intergovernmental Conference, a picture that we can also share with the European Parliament. I also wrote to my colleagues in the applicant countries, both those in the first wave and the second wave of enlargement, who we would like to see united with us one day, asking them too for their views on the Intergovernmental Conference, because the worst thing that could happen to European enlargement would be for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to perceive it as a kind of preventative measure against new members. This would lead to an atmosphere of great distrust. The measures that the conference will have to adopt are measures to make Europe work better, and certainly not measures to prevent countries wishing to join from one day making their voice heard in the European decision-making system. That is why it is important for them to participate from now on, and for us to listen to their opinions. And that is why it is not unrealistic for us to think, as one Member of this House has already said, of having a clearer idea of the scope of the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference by the time the Lisbon European Council is held, as long as there is a consensus on this.
If Europe is to assert itself on the world stage, it needs to have a common security and defence policy. The European Union will never have a worthwhile foreign policy if this ingredient is missing. Over the next six months we will be taking decisive steps to make this happen. In September, we will be carrying out the first exercise in which NATO will transfer capacity to the Western European Union and this will take place under the political guidance of the European Union. But those Members who do not represent countries which are members of the Atlantic Alliance may rest assured that the aim of this exercise will, at all times, be to increase European security, not to reduce it. And to this end, it will always involve very careful and judicious relations with those of us who are not members of the Atlantic Alliance, but who will be able to have access to all these systems whenever they want to take part in them. If they do wish to do so, they will be totally on a par with the other partners.
I would now like to comment on certain other foreign policy items that Members have raised, in relation to the EU-Africa Summit. We did not include it amongst the Portuguese Presidency’s specific objectives, as when we took over the presidency, we believed that this objective had not been sufficiently prepared, and we did not want to frustrate people in Europe by setting an objective for which we could not offer any guarantees whatsoever. Our approach is this: we will carry on taking steps to ensure that this idea can be revived at any point, should it prove possible to do this in good time, and if it is logistically feasible. Otherwise, we will continue to examine this subject with our partners in Africa and we will create a basis for the issues to be discussed and for policy to be developed in future.
I would now like to turn to the issue of the embargo on arms to Indonesia. In September, at the most dramatic point in the events occurring in East Timor, the European Union decided, for a limited period, which was to come to an end in January, to impose an embargo on arms to Indonesia. This resolution did not include any mechanism for its automatic extension, and the consensus reached at Council level was that this was not the time to rush into a new arms embargo on Indonesia, but that it should also be made very clear that the Member States of the European Union are subject to a very rigorous code of conduct which lays down very strict rules governing the final destination of arms and their use. A very clear consensus emerged for us to stress that this subject would be kept under review, with the option of an embargo mechanism remaining available to the European Union at any time, just as it had been in the past, should it prove necessary to act and to adopt this approach in the event of a dramatic situation arising and calling for corrective and limiting action.
Regarding Angola, this is a country with huge resources but – and this is something of a rarity in Africa – quite a small population, both in relation to the size of the country and its resources. The situation in Angola has led to conflict and instability, and it has also led to serious food shortages and major humanitarian concerns. One of the parties has not adhered to the Lusaka Agreement and one of the essential aspects of the Angolan situation has been the refusal of one of the parties to demilitarise itself and to convert itself into a civilian party with the usual institutional arrangements. It is important for this to happen, and the European Union’s approach is accordingly to encourage everyone in one of the camps, UNITA, to adopt a political approach rather than a military one. However, there are also requirements that everyone recognises. I was in Angola about four days ago and spoke not only with the President and with members of the government, but also with members of parliament from all the parties, including members who sympathise with what we would today view as UNITA’s various aims, and I reached the conclusion that the need for improvements in the Angolan system is recognised by a great many of these. Some of these improvements are under way and there is a need to encourage their implementation: improvements in the financial system and improvements in national accounting, and in its transparency and rules. On this subject, the start of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and the possibility of signing an initial agreement in the near future will undoubtedly create the right conditions, through the Paris Club, for creating a multilateral mechanism for monitoring settlement of Angola’s debts. This will allow the European Union to unblock the generation of funds agreed upon years ago, during the Angola Round Table, but which are still being held back at presents for reasons we are aware of. I also have in mind improvements in the institutional system, with a constitutional reform on which the debate is now starting, and which is, of course, based on the values of pluralism, the rule of law and freedom of the press. In this respect, I wish to emphasise the importance of the debate to be held in the Angolan Parliament on the rights of journalists and the fundamental need for an independent press in a modern political system. It is obvious that this will assist Angola’s reintegration into the international system and an improvement in the United Nations’ own systems, which is extremely important. In this connection, I would like to highlight the fact that negotiations have been concluded between the Angolan Government and the Secretary-General of the United Nations on opening a United Nations office in Angola which is committed to, and involved in, humanitarian aid, and which will inevitably have important consequences for the people of Angola. Therefore, alongside the need to demilitarise one political party, there is, on the other hand, a need for institutional improvements, improvements in the financial system and improvements in the links with United Nations bodies in general. The involvement of the European Union in this process is obviously of the greatest importance, both in the context of immediate humanitarian aid and in the context of drawing up a programme of support for reconstruction and rehabilitation."@en1
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