Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-14-Speech-2-022"
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"en.20000314.3.2-022"2
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"Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, for his work programme. I concur with the remarks made that there should be more focus, but also that it should be better tailored to the five-year plan. It seems as if we are talking about two different documents.
The first chapter of the work programme is entitled: “Europe, its neighbours and the world” and rightly so. I have permission to quote one of the first sentences from this chapter: "the Union must be active on the regional and world stage." But in order to be able to play this role, it is vital to develop a practical form of cooperation between the Council’s High Representative, Mr Solana, the Commission and the European Parliament in order to strengthen democratic control and democratic accountability.
In our opinion, it is also essential that the Commission’s role be reinforced in the field of foreign policy. We want to project a much stronger, united front as far as this European foreign policy is concerned. But the instruments involved are also an important factor. They help in the analysis of non-military crises and help us to act on them quickly. If we look at Mozambique, for example, how long have we had to wait before real action could be taken? This is about very concrete issues, such as transport capacity. To this end, we need swifter coordination within the European Union.
Take the enormous cattle losses Mongolia has suffered. We know that there are funds available in TACIS and ECHO within the European Union. But why are we not helping out? This is because there are too many bureaucratic hurdles. The EU’s overseas dealings will need to be better tuned to our need for a stronger, future European foreign policy. In short, operational implementation is central.
Relations with Russia are of vital importance. We find ourselves in a situation in which we cannot afford to fall behind the Council of Europe, which has levelled criticism at Russia concerning its Chechnya policy. It is extremely depressing to note that freedom of press is still not guaranteed in Russia. We had invited the journalist, Mr Babitsky, to visit us next Thursday, but this was vetoed by the Russian authorities. I hope that the European Commission too, will protest in the strongest terms to the Russian authorities."@en1
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