Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-04-Speech-1-103"
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"en.20000904.7.1-103"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, I am sure that it will come as no surprise to our friend and fellow Member, Mr Galeote Quecedo, when I say that I am sorely disappointed by this report. I feel that this is an over-cautious report, and yet it is already raising some people’s hackles. It would have been better to address the crux of the matter and I am sorry that the report has not done this.
The issue of diplomacy is not merely a question of training diplomats and the status of delegations. The issue is of fundamental importance and there is a powerful taboo in this Parliament which we are never prepared to confront: that we have fifteen national diplomatic services, which have been strengthened over years of integration by gradually taking over the competencies of all the national ministries and which have become the real powers, the main power blocking any possible reform of foreign affairs and diplomacy, because it is their power that would ultimately be under threat. They had no trouble delegating and taking the powers of the other ministries to the European level, but when it comes to their own power, it is a different question altogether.
Mrs Frassoni pointed out how ridiculous it is to have a situation in which we have 14 000 diplomats, whilst the United States has 3 000, with the cost/quality ratio of which we are fully aware. We must address the issue of the diplomatic services and the issue of external affairs policy with the same approach that we used to achieve economic and monetary union, by establishing a gradual process of communitising external policy and the diplomatic services. Unfortunately, the report does not address these issues. Unfortunately, we are only proposing slight changes, which will just add a new level to the structures that already exist and we are in danger of ending up with bodies that are even more incapable of making the right decisions quickly.
In my opinion, the questions we must answer are these: do we or do we not want to communitise external affairs policy? Do we want to make the same huge mistake that we made by creating the figure of Mr CFSP and by restoring exclusive Community competence for external policy to the Commission or to a Vice-President of the Commission? These are the real questions. I am rather disappointed that the report does not discuss these issues and somewhat surprised that the EPP has adopted this position given that, tomorrow, in another report on the Union’s political priorities, it will probably adopt a more forthright position on the communitisation of external policy.
I therefore urge our rapporteur and friend, Mr Galeote Quecedo, to perhaps incorporate some of the amendments that have been tabled and to ensure that a process is initiated, that an appeal is made to the Council and that, for once, our Parliament does not fall short of the position of the Council and the Commission, as unfortunately has been the case for the last ten years."@en1
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