Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-11-14-Speech-3-183"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20011114.8.3-183"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, little more than two months after the attacks of 11 September, we have all understood, including the United States, that, in order to confront global terrorism, we need to create a policy with many dimensions: military, security, intelligence, humanitarian, I would add cultural, and others. And we need a common will: that of the coalition, whose framework or basis is the United Nations.
The news over recent days confirms that hope is beginning to come to Afghanistan, and we must state one thing very clearly: the primary victims and hostages of the aggressive fundamentalism of terrorism have been the Afghans, and particularly, the Afghan women, because it is they who have suffered most from this situation. This is demonstrated by the television pictures we are seeing of women, and men, but particularly women, who can now move around with their faces exposed. That is my first point.
We now have the obligation, through the United Nations, to seek a political solution to the Afghan situation, firstly, and to the whole complex problem of Central Asia. The European Union must continue to cooperate in terms of humanitarian aid and cooperate with the UNHCR in order to deal with the problem of the refugees and displaced persons, and also so that, under the auspices of the United Nations, there is a plan for stability and future democracy in Afghanistan.
Secondly, we must continue to intensify our action, so that the European Union can respond to terrorism. Police cooperation is improving. Just yesterday, eleven people from Bin Laden’s network in Spain were arrested in my country, and this is happening every day in other countries of the Union. In general, we are guaranteeing the rights of people who want to fight our democratic and pluralist system, and this is to our credit, but it causes problems. And in Parliament we are trying to move ahead quickly, together with the Commission, to create a common anti-terrorist policy. We must continue in that vein.
Thirdly, we note that we lack the capacity to act jointly in a military sense. Up to a point, we have compensated for that lack by means of other policies, but that does not justify this vacuum in the security and defence policy. Rather than looking back to see who was at the meeting in Ghent, or, bringing to mind that old film, ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner’, working out who was in London and who was not, what the European Parliament has to say to the Council and the Commission is that we want the security and defence policy to be included in the Treaties.
I will take this opportunity to say to the Commissioner that my group, and, I believe, the whole of Parliament, hopes that the Commission, using its powers as guardian of the Treaties, and also its powers of initiative, will take a clear approach in relation to Laeken and the Convention by raising these issues. We will support them in that and, in this way, we will be able to overcome the current situation: updating our security and defence policy, updating the Petersberg tasks and stating it jointly. That must be our response.
I would like to make a final comment, Madam President, on an absolutely essential point which we were able to raise in the Euro-Mediterranean forum, which followed the forum held by the Council, where we were able to speak with our colleagues, parliamentarians from both sides of the Mediterranean. We heard voices – Arab, Israeli and European – agreeing that we have to continue working, and the European Union is playing a central role for the first time, in order to create an Israeli State with secure borders together with a Palestinian State which also has secure borders. This is the only possible basis for a stable solution in the Middle East.
We, in Parliament, must therefore decisively support the work of our representatives, both here and in the Middle East."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples