Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-13-Speech-2-048"
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"en.20010313.6.2-048"2
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"Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on the effort he has made to improve this report.
In recent years, Europe has had to face situations which we thought had been eradicated once and for all in our part of the world. In view of these events, I believe that we can no longer ignore our moral and political obligation to establish mechanisms to deal with a humanitarian catastrophe, when all other prevention mechanisms fail.
The European Union must act as one on this. I wish to say on behalf of my group that we are in favour of distributing responsibilities amongst the Member States. I am not going to use the word burden because, having seen the faces of men and women in refugee camps in Macedonia, who are just like you and me, Mr President, it seems to me to be horrendous and repugnant to call them a burden. I believe that it in doing this we must take clear account of the situation and show a degree of flexibility, which the rapporteur acknowledges, simply to listen to the will of the refugees and to prevent them, as a result of their temporarily weak position, from effectively becoming a burden to be transported to where we, completely regardless of their views, decide.
I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur on the effort which he has made to clarify the time periods, to clarify that, in this case, it is especially important to respect the time periods within which things are decided, and to support the amendment which our group has presented in order to specify and to reduce these time periods.
In relation to family reunification, I wish to say to Mr Nassauer that I do not understand this obsession you have. The Right has convinced us, even the most stubborn of the Leftists, that the family is a necessary asset and an important pillar of our society. Is this only the case for Europeans? Mr Nassauer, are you on the Right going to leave your mother or brother in a situation of special need if a violent situation arises in your countries? Can we not, for temporary protection, take account of these especially serious situations which can cause particular anguish, and bring these people to the European Union together with their families? I truly believe that we can take account of them. With regard to the definition of the family, it seems to me that the Commission’s position that each Member State should apply its own definition of the family is more than reasonable and we are going to support this position.
I hope that the Council does not make us wait another four years for a decision on this issue. I believe that Mr Wiebenga did not realise that he was taking on such a great responsibility when he produced his first report and that he will not mind being rapporteur for this issue for life."@en1
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