Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-02-17-Speech-4-153"
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"en.20000217.7.4-153"2
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"Mr President, acts of racist and xenophobic violence are taking hold at the heart of Europe. Everywhere this violence is exacerbated by the spread of extremist movements. We must take practical steps today to put an end to all attacks of a physical nature. No European society can truly flourish when it harbours the risk of seeing one section of its population fall prey to the hatred of the other.
Having received a delegation from the Austrian human rights association here yesterday and having seen what has happened in the province of Almería, it is easy to understand that we could easily have prevented this resurgence of racist hatred. These violent scenes at El Ejido are so similar to archive pictures of Alabama in the 1950s, when the KKK terrified the black population, that it is hard to tell them apart. They also put us in mind of Germany in the 1930s, when the Nazis were persecuting the Jews.
Without wishing to lump everything together hysterically, because each period is different, we have failed to learn the lessons of history. That is my conclusion today. Because this witch hunt which broke out in the province of Almería should have been foreseen. It is the result, first and foremost, of the ghettoisation and exploitation of immigrant labour. Three annual crops of Moroccan and African workers support 100 000 people and manage to bring in an annual turnover of nearly EUR 2 million; and yet 60% of them have no running water in a region where, as we know, the temperature may reach 40 degrees in summer. We also know that many of them only earn EUR 30 a month, while their fellow European citizens can earn three times that. This precarious wage-earning position weakens these immigrants and their families and makes them vulnerable. The irresponsibility of certain elected representatives and the barely disguised complicity of the authorities have contributed to this racist explosion.
We should counter such acts of terror, Mr President, by setting up a parliamentary committee of inquiry as quickly as possible so that we can decide how we can succeed in preventing other conflicts of a similar nature elsewhere. My fellow Member, Mrs Roure, was right to remind us just now that we all need to put our own house in order.
Finally, and I think this is important: why not have the honesty today to relay what was disclosed in a recent UN study explaining that, if Spain wishes to preserve its work, retirement and pension potential, it is no good just giving 30 000 immigrants a year legal status; it needs to be prepared to accept 12 million immigrants between now and the year 2050? We must insist today as a matter of urgency on the right to education and the duty to remember, to recall the dates in history when our countries teetered on the brink of horror. We need to educate our children on these matters and finally have the courage to recognise that we will need to be prepared to accept many more immigrants in years to come.
It just remains for me to urge you all to attend the demonstration on Saturday. We must take to the streets of Europe to protest against these alliances with extremists which are a disgrace to Europe and which lead our youth astray."@en1
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