Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-04-Speech-1-102"
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"en.20000904.7.1-102"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Galeote Quecedo report is interesting for two reasons: the first is that Parliament unashamedly reveals its true intentions in it, and the second is that nobody is paying it the slightest attention.
What is the real issue here? The real issue is nothing less than providing the European Union, which, by the way, is now simply the Commission, with those final attributes of a sovereign State that was lacking, i.e. a diplomatic service and the prerequisite for establishing it, which is legal personality. Let us be logical about this. The only reason for this college’s existence is to create a common diplomatic service and to do so in a completely transparent way, as outlined in the Galeote Quecedo report.
If those who back this report achieve their aims, the ‘carving up’ of our nations will thus have reached its logical conclusion, by once again adopting the old Monnet, Schuman and Delors method, which consists of creating a body in the hope that it will get around to creating its own role and content. The truth is, however, that so many preconditions have been left out that people may have the impression that we do not care what anyone thinks. We are creating a diplomatic instrument without even thinking about the essential prerequisite of a common diplomatic policy. This itself presupposes another prerequisite, which is that the common interests of the Member States must be defined. This prerequisite in turn presupposes another, consisting of defining a common link between Europe and the rest of the world.
If we are only talking about the three main powers, Germany, Great Britain and France, it is impossible to see what points would form the basis of our common interests and diplomatic policy, either on Western Europe’s relationship with the United States or on the role of NATO, subjects on which we are definitely not in agreement nor likely to be, or on the East – and here we have the thorny question of Russia and our relations with the Central European countries in general – or on the South, perhaps significantly less where the South is concerned, particularly in the context of the Mediterranean policy.
This is therefore a fraud, and the worst of all kinds of fraud at that, which is intellectual fraud, unless, that is, we accept that the diplomacy of the main power – the central power – can effectively be foisted on everyone else, which would actually amount to solving the problem. Quite recently, at the UN ‘Women 2000’ conference, our Polish friends were able to see just how flexible common diplomacy really is when they were ordered to fall into line with the position laid down by the Union, or face delays in their country’s application for Membership.
We feel sure that the experience of our friends in Central Europe in the field of resistance to totalitarianism could prove useful to us some day, and furthermore, an illustration of this form of totalitarianism has been provided recently by the unacceptable quarrel that some people are picking with one of our fellow Members, Daniel Hannan. Let there be no mistake, the idea of common representation at the United Nations is being used to attack the permanent seats held by certain Member States as well as the idea that there could be dissident voices in this world, such as the voice France tries very often to make heard with regard to the United States.
Ultimately, Europe can speak with one voice only if it has nothing to say. This has been proved once again and it has also been proved that this Europe is not simply negating nations as individual nations – it is rejecting and annihilating Europe itself."@en1
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