Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-03-Speech-3-029"
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"en.20011003.2.3-029"2
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"Commissioner, the European Union is facing several major challenges, which it will have to meet as quickly as possible if it wants to mount an effective, coherent and long-term campaign against terrorism, with particular reference to breaking up the terrorist networks.
Several colleagues have already discussed the first challenge, namely to avoid a clash of civilisations with the Islamic world. In that context, let me take advantage of Mr Michel's presence and congratulate him on his diplomatic activity over the past weeks, which, I believe, is bound to produce positive results in terms of establishing a very broad coalition against terrorism and its supporters. Creating a very broad coalition means, of course, securing the participation of as many countries as possible, but without losing sight of the fact that our enemies' enemies are not always our friends and realising that no state that forms part of this coalition is exempt from its duties in regard to democracy, the protection of human rights and respect for minorities. I am thinking in particular of Russia and China, which are of course important players but also cause us serious concern in this respect.
The second challenge, and it is certainly not insignificant, is to strengthen police and judicial cooperation without compromising individual rights and freedoms. In fact here, in the European Union, the parliamentary control is totally inadequate. I therefore think, and I believe we agree fairly unanimously, that it is important to include judicial and police cooperation in the first pillar. That would certainly be one answer. Furthermore, at international level, we urgently need to set up the International Criminal Court, a process that has been underway for several years but is now marking time. Let me point out that we vitally need this kind of court to try crimes against humanity, such as those committed in New York and Washington. We will have to mount a large-scale diplomatic action to persuade as many states as possible to support this project, in particular the United States, which is after all a vital player.
The third challenge is the problem of depriving the terrorist networks of their means of action, both financial and technical. We have already raised the subject of financing; we have a draft directive on money laundering that is currently making little progress and I think an effort needs to be made in the dialogue between the Council and Parliament to ensure that this directive is adopted quickly. Moreover, we must realise that this is a first step; it does not go far enough but it is a determining step. In the long term, I am convinced we will be forced to take large-scale action to outlaw and abolish offshore banking and tax havens. Money laundering is obviously an important weapon in the hands of international terrorist groups and international terrorist networks.
I was struck by some information, which has not been denied, to the effect that even before the New York and Washington attacks it appears that shares in some companies – and I am thinking in particular of the two American airline companies and several insurance companies that were affected by the attack – were jettisoned just before the attacks. This could be regarded as insider dealing and I think that at the very least we need an international inquiry to check this information.
Finally, let me turn to the technical level, technical being, of course, a euphemism for arms. Clearly the European Union will have to intensify its fight against illegal and uncontrolled exports of light arms and keep a close eye on the fundamental problem of the proliferation of chemical and bacteriological weapons. I believe that we cannot avoid the need to take a longer-term look at the vulnerability of some of our technological tools to acts of terrorism. I am thinking, for example, of energy, of the risks posed by nuclear power stations, the majority of which are highly vulnerable to the types of action committed in the United States."@en1
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