Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-31-Speech-3-065"
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"en.20010131.4.3-065"2
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"Mr President, although the Barcelona Process raised hopes and expectations, today we must register disappointment. What yesterday were laudable ambitions, such as calls for an area of shared prosperity, for a balancing of North and South, a commitment to enhancing peace and stability, are now urgent issues. While we all see the need to relaunch the partnership, there is, however, a divergence in the options we favour. The future of the very concept of a partnership lies not in adjusting the needs of these populations to the market forces at work in the North and to our personal ambitions, but instead in ensuring their own development and resolving their urgent issues. I believe, therefore, that Europe should adopt some approach other than simply supporting these countries in establishing the free-trade area that Europe was to set up. Enabling cooperation agreements, particularly through public services, seeking other financial resources, by introducing a Tobin-style tax, for example, and reducing or even writing off debt would give real substance to a fair and useful partnership. This approach would favour North-South relations without the element of domination. The same applies to human rights. Our associations with countries in the Mediterranean region can only be built on trust. We are, therefore, extremely concerned about human rights violations in Tunisia, for example, because the agreements signed by both parties oblige them to respect human rights. The same applies to the European Union’s respect for the rights of all citizens. I am thinking here of the need for a more integrated and more generous approach to migration. It is inhuman and ineffective to advocate the free movement of goods and capital but not of people. Experience shows that closing borders serves only to force immigrants with no identity papers and no rights into the hands of smugglers and other unscrupulous dealers.
How can we speak of managing immigration in a more humane manner, how can we hope and pray for further integration, if we do not question its foundations? We must safeguard the freedom of movement of persons and equality in social, economic, cultural and political rights.
To sum up, in order to create an area of peace in the Middle East, the European Union needs to take much more direct and resolute action. From now on, the United Nations resolutions must be applied in full, Israel must respect its commitments and we must recognise the Palestinians’ legitimate right to their own state. The same problem – I am about to finish – can be seen in the Western Sahara, where there is a risk that armed conflict will be resumed.
Despite all this, the European Union has everything to gain by bringing together all parties, such as associations, local authorities and unions, who are already establishing a different form of partnership."@en1
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