Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-25-Speech-3-162"
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"en.20001025.6.3-162"2
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"We are broadly in favour of so-called flexible integration. By allowing a group of countries to go ahead and deepen cooperation within a particular area and, at the same time, preventing one or more Member States from curbing flexible integration, then integration throughout the European Union can go forwards. As long as the European Union’s common objectives are promoted within the framework of flexible integration and as long as no Member State is excluded from participating, we believe that this is a positive solution and ought to be developed.
If, in a future EU with 25 to 30 Member States, the situation is to be avoided of a Europe
in which the unity of the Member States is in danger of disintegrating, we nonetheless believe that at least half of all Member States must participate in flexible integration.
We are also opposed to creating duplicate defence structures within the EU and consequently to flexible integration within the EU’s foreign and security policy. Following the EU’s failure in the Balkans, it is incredibly important that the EU as a whole should have the ability to act in its own immediate vicinity and be able to make personnel and resources available in time for conflict management and peace-keeping measures.
The WEU’s institutional and operational structures ought to be fully integrated into the common security policy. The EU must acquire a credible foreign policy. We cannot rely upon the United States forever more. At the same time, it is important to retain the United States’s continued commitment, and we do not want the EU to develop a parallel mini NATO
Still less do we wish to see a limited number of Member States go further within the framework of flexible integration in this area. It is therefore important to retain the transatlantic link, even if there might, of course, be better coordination and a better distribution of labour. We believe that, in the future too, a credible common European foreign policy must be developed within the rules that apply at present. Decisions ought to be taken by majority vote, but the option of a constructive veto, whereby a country may choose to remain outside a particular process but not prevent others from pressing ahead, ought to remain."@en1
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