Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-13-Speech-1-070"
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"en.20001113.6.1-070"2
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"Mr President, I shall side with the small number of dissidents in warning against the ideas, plans and projects in this stream of reports on legal policy which are up for debate today, including Mrs Gebhardt’s report. The explanatory statement is very precise in describing what is happening at the moment, namely that judicial cooperation is being institutionalised or, to put it more accurately, that there is a trend towards supranationalism in this area. It is, as the report says very precisely, “a forerunner of a future European public prosecution service designed to strengthen the European Union’s judicial dimension in relation to criminal law”, and reference is made to the drafting of EU criminal law with attendant institutions, police service, prosecution service, administration of justice, etc. which, for example, were adopted in connection with Mr Wiebenga’s report in 1999.
In two areas, however, crucial mistakes are being made, first of all when it comes to the very process of making criminal law into a supranational affair. Systems of criminal law are, of course, among the clearest cultural expressions of a society. What we have here is a conflict of legal cultures, for there is not just one European criminal law and not just one European ideology relating to crime policy. There are fifteen of them. By incorporating – or institutionalising – these projects into the European Union’s various bureaucracies, an élite and non-transparent system arises which is, on many points, in conflict with elementary ideals relating to democracy and legal rights. The second point is also interesting, of course. A number of very crucial initiatives are undoubtedly being taken towards establishing a United States of Europe. Interestingly enough, the heading reads: “The establishment of Eurojust as a means of upholding the rule of law.” What rule of law is being talked about here? Has the EU become a State? Yes, it is on the way to becoming one, for the ambition, as expressed so clearly in the last paragraph of the first part of the explanatory statement, is precisely that the European Union must establish “independent legislative, executive and judiciary” bodies “with counterbalancing powers”, that is to say the hallmarks of a State. For both these reasons, my own group cannot be expected to cooperate."@en1
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