Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-17-Speech-3-056"
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"en.20010117.2.3-056"2
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"Mr President, I hope I have the Commissioner's attention, as he is in conversation with Mr Brok at the moment. Throughout this Parliament we have been calling for the Commission to introduce more efficient financial management and administrative procedures so that it can deliver external assistance and implement its programmes such as mine action urgently, in times of crisis or when lives are at stake. It seems to us that this was the underlying motive behind Mr Patten's proposal for the rapid reaction facility. I hope this is the case and I would ask for a reassurance on this point from the Commissioner.
It is a pity that the term "Rapid Reaction Facility" has been used for what after all should be a procedural matter, a financial management instrument. It is easily confused with "Rapid Reaction Force"; it has been confused in the media and even in Parliament's own session news this week. Perhaps in the interest of clarity and to avoid confusion, the Commission could change the title to something like "Urgent Financing Facility".
We support the principle as I have described it, but one or two unfortunate elements seem to have crept in. Firstly, instead of referring to the facility in the context of CFSP and the Commission's own first pillar external actions, it has been put into the context of the common security and defence policy. Now we have expressed our concerns about the EU meddling in military matters on many occasions and our reservations have not been eased by developments at Nice. This is a separate issue. The Commission's financial facility should not be mixed up with these defence issues.
Secondly, there is a thread of political correctness running through the proposal. I am baffled for instance by the idea that the fight against gender discrimination would fall into the crisis management category, triggering the use of the rapid reaction facility.
Thirdly, for us more importantly, Mr Newton Dunn, the rapporteur, has taken the opportunity to introduce an amendment in pursuit of one of his pet subjects, namely the establishment of a European public security force, in other words a European
or armed police. This is the main reason why we cannot accept this report.
We do not want a European army and we certainly to not want a European police force. We do want the Commission to carry out its external assistance with greater efficiency and we welcome measures to that effect."@en1
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