Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-20-Speech-4-020"
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"en.20010920.3.4-020"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our objective is to develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice within which citizens’ rights are respected and the free movement of persons is guaranteed. However, for over 20 years now, association activists and many elected representatives have been advocating a citizens’ Europe that demonstrates solidarity and is open not only to goods and capital but also and above all to persons.
For one brief moment, we had faith in the hope that was born in Schengen, a hope that was virtually suffocated at birth by intolerance, a failure of courage and a lack of calm political analysis. If Schengen represents a considerable step forward for Europe because of the progress made in certain areas, including police and judicial cooperation, it has to be said now that this step forward is a halting and discriminatory one. Although the Schengen Convention has come into force in its entirety in several Member States, there are still inequalities that affect persons who do not hold a European nationality or have the necessary papers, although certain persons or members of their family may have lived in Europe for very many years. Some Member States do not grant the same rights to everyone resident in their country, even if they all accept the same responsibilities. On top of this, we have an immigration and asylum policy that varies from one country to another, differing procedures and controls and repressive police practices leading to dramatic situations in human terms such as those we are now witnessing at Sangatte in the north of France. At the very heart of Europe, in the Channel Tunnel, thousands of men, women and children are risking their lives every day in an attempt to enter the United Kingdom. These people, while awaiting their journey, are concentrated in a reception centre in humanely unacceptable conditions supported only by humanitarian organisations without any power or means at their disposal, such as the Red Cross. These practices bring back some bitter memories. The political authorities still treat refugees and asylum-seekers with coldness, hypocrisy and intolerance. This is unacceptable in the wake of the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Just imagine that police officers have even dared to fire real bullets at asylum seekers! In fact you do not have to imagine it, because other police forces in Europe have already done it. These facts are continuing to discredit our parliaments in the eyes of thousands of members of the public who are calling for a halt to inequality, to injustice and to a Fortress Europe policy.
For these reasons, we will be voting against this report, which overlooks all these facts and fails to offer any alternative. Instead, we should act together, as a matter of urgency, to find concrete and equitable solutions to all these dramatic situations, and in particular to the sufferings of the refugees at Sangatte, and to the cries of distress from all those who come to Europe seeking asylum and help."@en1
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