Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-24-Speech-3-175"

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". – I am sorry for the reasons to which you alluded, President. The fire drill has meant that this important debate is in a sense an inadvertent victim of the importance of enhancing our parliamentary security. I will unfortunately have to leave shortly because the minister and I have to get to Bucharest by dawn – a challenging journey at this time of evening from Strasbourg! We have to be there for the opening of the Stability Pact conference tomorrow, which, and it is not entirely irrelevant to what the honourable Member says in his report, at least indicates a measure of success over the last couple of years for the evolving common, foreign and security policy. I would like to congratulate the honourable Member, on what is a very comprehensive and valuable report. As he said in his own remarks, the evolution of a common foreign and security policy is shown to be even more timely by the appalling events of the autumn of 2001. The honourable Member's report gives a very accurate overview of what has been achieved so far. I particularly welcome his proposals for a strong parliamentary dimension in the common foreign and security policy. It is very important that we put down deeper democratic roots for the common foreign and security policy and that should involve not only this distinguished Parliament but also national parliaments. I have made a point of trying to appear in front of the select committees in national parliaments on bilateral visits to the Member States. If anybody challenges the progress that we have made in developing a CFSP they should compare what happened during this crisis with what happened in the run-up to the Gulf War at the beginning of the 1990s or how we coped with the Balkans in the early to mid-1990s. We cannot yet, as pop singers would perhaps suggest, 'strut our stuff'. But we have some reason for being modestly proud of the achievements that have been made so far. I fully agree with the report's analysis of the prerequisites of successful CFSP action. We have to bring together the resources and instruments of all the EU players: the Community, the Council and the Member States. I doubt whether history will regard the present institutional structures as ideal. I do not put it any more strongly than that, but the High Representative and I have worked as hard as we could make these structures work as effectively as is possible. What will happen in the future is for other people greater than me to determine. I do not want to go through all my agreement with the honourable Member on individual regional and geographical areas, not least because Bucharest calls. But I want to stress one or two points he made. I could, for example, have gone into a detailed paragraph or two agreeing on Russia and the Ukraine, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, on the Balkans in general and on the importance of getting back to Mitchell in the Middle East. The two points I should like to mention briefly are these: firstly, we rightly talk about the importance of trying to ensure that the international campaign against terrorism is not seen as a conflict between the West – Europe and North America – and the world of Islam. It is absolutely right that we have to make it clear this is not a clash of civilisations. But we have a real opportunity and responsibility in the European Union to use the mechanisms of the Barcelona process, to use the mechanisms of the Euro-Med partnership in order to strengthen the relationship between Europe and the Islamic world. We have a real chance and a real responsibility to do this. I hope we will seize it. I also hope we will look very hard at our relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council in this regard. The other point that I want to pick up from Mr Brok's remarks and from the report is simply this: in my judgment, we have to try to ensure that we can make use of this crisis to open doors and windows which have otherwise been shut. That affects, for example, our future relationship with Pakistan. It also, in my judgment, very clearly touches on our relationship with Iran. I have no doubt at all that the Iranians are serious in wanting to establish a better, more profound relationship between themselves and the European Union. I have no doubt at all that they are serious about wanting to negotiate a trade and cooperation agreement with us. They know perfectly well that any arrangements with us will involve a dialogue on human rights and related matters. But I believe they are serious interlocutors and that it is incumbent upon us to respond as positively as possible to the overtures they have made. On Afghanistan I will only say that I look forward – I hope sooner, rather than later – to the time when I will have to come back to Parliament and the Council and point out the financial consequences for all of us of the political promises and pledges we have made about the future of Afghanistan. There will be an important moment when we have to put our money and our diplomatic efforts where our convictions have been and should remain. Finally, I would like to say once again how important it is to mobilise all our institutions, all our competences, as effectively as possible in pursuit of a common foreign and security policy. Sometimes it is possible to underestimate the contribution which the Commission can make and wants to make in the CFSP field. There is a great deal that we can do in order to make sure that the CFSP develops effectively as a way of reflecting Europe's growing clout in the international political arena. The rapporteur has been well ahead of his time in pressing us to do more in this field. I hope that we will live up to his expectations in the months and years ahead."@en1
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