Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-14-Speech-2-163"
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"en.20001114.6.2-163"2
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"Mr President, the different areas of the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue must, in my opinion, be tackled from the social, political and cultural perspectives, in continuation of that process – the Euro-Mediterranean Conference – which was set in motion in Barcelona in 1995 when we first started to talk about Mediterranean policy, although the complexity of the subject caused some difficulties even then.
The world is moving inexorably towards globalisation and, as a result, is having to organise itself into large blocks which act as protagonists on the great stage of world competition. This is prompting the Europe of national States to form a single political, economic and commercial entity in order to organise and boost a market of over 350 million consumers and set it on a level with other markets. To this end, we need to establish suitable structures, which could be both political and economic. However, first and foremost, we need political strategies which are free of bureaucracy.
Europe is the guardian of great values: peace, freedom and social progress, values which must be protected day in day out precisely because they are the result of victories won at the cost of great sacrifice.
Europe's economic progress is now under threat from the current globalisation process, and our continent is in serious danger of a recession caused by competition from South-East Asia – where the cost of labour is a tenth of the cost of labour in Europe – the USA and Japan. The Mediterranean policy is now operating in a world of extremely varied interests and latent stabilisation, and it must therefore include certain elements such as the development of peace-keeping initiatives – but it must not, I would stress, be limited to this – and the creation of partnership projects which involve northern and southern Europe, precisely because the objective of making the Mediterranean an area of dialogue, tolerance and cooperation and a guarantee of peace and stability cannot be achieved without firm political will or without the lasting, well-balanced social and economic development of less-favoured peoples and the social development of the coastal peoples, improving their employment possibilities, in order to put an end to the multitude of problems caused by the tremendous number of emigrants leaving the Basin and now affecting all the countries of the Union.
We are therefore convinced that the Union's Mediterranean policy must take account of the Mediterranean Basin and therefore treat the Mediterranean as a project, mindful of the fact that the rights of peoples take priority over the rights of individuals, if only because, when all is said and done, conflicts between nations harm the life and development of the individual citizens. Braudel's ‘Mediterranean of a thousand things’, the ancient civilisations which, for years, have regarded each other with hostility across the Basin, now have the opportunity to start afresh, setting off along a common path which, through political will and the power of dialogue, will lay the foundations for genuine progress and economic and social development."@en1
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