Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-01-Speech-3-070"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000301.5.3-070"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"As we sit here, hundreds of thousands of people are in enormous peril from the floods in Mozambique. This has not just happened. The flooding has been going for weeks, and yet only now it seems there is an assessment of need. The level of practical assistance from the Community and from the Member States has been pathetic.
For a long time, many of us have sounded a warning that the European Union was spending too much time on its potentially damaging and essentially political project of establishing military decision-making structures, when instead it should have been concentrating its efforts on the improvement of its civil instruments, particularly for humanitarian intervention.
I acknowledge Mr Patten’s efforts in this direction, but what a pity that the governments of the Member States had not devoted as much time to sorting out their capacity for disaster relief and humanitarian assistance as they have in the dangerous business of creating military structures that will ultimately duplicate and undermine those of NATO.
Of course, there is a relationship between military resources and humanitarian assistance, and there are serious military deficiencies in the armed forces of many European countries. These are of long standing, but are being addressed already within NATO.
I have not yet heard a convincing security-policy explanation of why the European Union needs to establish autonomous, decision-making capabilities for the use of military forces outside of the NATO structures unless it is to create bodies which will rival NATO. After all, the EU Member States are either full members of NATO or sit around the Euro Atlantic Partnership Council table. NATO is largely European.
Finally, Mr Solana, I would just like to ask you what point there is in having the much heralded policy planning and early warning cell in the Council Secretariat if still we are taken by surprise by yet another humanitarian catastrophe."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples