Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-02-Speech-3-035"
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"en.20000202.4.3-035"2
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"Madam President, we are debating an extremely serious issue. We are debating nothing less than the presence in a Member State’s government of a political force whose doctrine and principles are incompatible with the conceptual and moral bases of the Union enshrined in its founding Treaties.
A simple reading of chapter 4, article 1 of the Austrian Freedom Party’s manifesto is enough to make any democratic conscience shudder. The view that ethnicity is the defining factor of a nation and the claim that one ethnic group has superiority over others, as is written here, revives old ghosts of the century which we have just left behind, which some historians have described as the century of horrors; horrors which the unacceptable philosophy behind Mr Haider’s manifesto has stirred up once again, to our amazement.
Of course Austria is a sovereign nation and of course we must respect the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a Member State. However, that is not the problem. The question is whether the Union can remain indifferent to the formation of a government in a Member State which includes such a party. Our answer to this crucial question is no.
Leaving aside strategic and tactical considerations, leaving aside possible exonerations based on other people’s behaviour and above and beyond party and electoral interests, the Spanish delegation of the People’s Group of this Parliament, in full agreement with the Spanish People’s Party and the Spanish Government, clearly expresses its full agreement with the statement of 31 January by the Portuguese Presidency of the Council. We agree with its substance, its tone and its scope.
Konrad Adenauer once said – and he knew what he was saying – that the surest way to pacify a tiger was to allow it to devour you. History is a compendium of events which could have been avoided. Therefore, Madam President, the Union and the Assembly must send an unequivocal message, rejecting of the tiger of intolerance, xenophobia and totalitarianism, so as not to add one more mistake to the long list of abdications, renunciations and opportunism which mark Europe’s past and for which we have paid such a heavy price."@en1
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