Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-04-Speech-1-107"
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"en.20000904.7.1-107"2
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"I would like to speak on behalf of the non-federalists in our group who actually feel that Europe is centralising far too much and more and more powers are being taken away from people at local and national levels, basically without any proper democratic control.
There is quite a lot of double-talk here tonight. On the one hand, people are saying that we are not talking about or aiming for a single diplomatic corps, but it is quite clear that the aim of this whole project is to have EU embassies abroad and to abolish national ones. I am not being nationalistic and saying that I want the Irish Embassy, but there is a certain amount of danger in this, particularly because it is geared towards the common foreign and security policy, which is not in the interest of the developing world or of the peoples that have been persecuted and exploited by Member States of this Union. You only need to look at the number of, for example, British embassies abroad. Britain has twice as many embassies as either France or Germany. It has a huge diplomatic corps which reflects its colonial past. I have grave reservations about the idea of a common European embassy, given that in the past people fleeing persecution in certain countries were able to go into some embassies and seek asylum and get protection.
What happens if you have a single European diplomatic presence abroad? We abolish national embassies. What would happen then if someone fleeing from persecution were to seek asylum or help from the EU embassy if it did not suit the EU's interests to support him or her?
I believe that there are grave dangers in what we are doing. It is interesting to hear some people speaking today about the need for a higher profile and EU embassies to compete with the US. This is all about competition. It is about being able to compete with other superpowers.
I do not approve of the idea that Europe should create another superpower. To do so would destabilise the global community. Whereas, we should look for more cooperation and less competition. The idea of competing with the US is completely unacceptable.
If you look at the report itself, it is geared towards facilitating the common foreign and security policy. Not all Greens and EFA members in our group – the non-federalists – would support Mr Dupuis' amendments, because we believe that they are moving in the same direction and we would have grave reservations about that."@en1
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