Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-05-Speech-2-125"
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"en.20020205.6.2-125"2
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". – Mr President, this is the first time I have spoken in a debate with you presiding. It is not just the half of me that is Irish which welcomes your presence in the Chair – all of me welcomes your presence in the Chair. I wish you well for a very successful presidency. I am sure we can count on it being not only successful but also remarkably eloquent.
Where is the evidence that going back twice to destroy the forensic laboratory that we had been asked to provide for the Palestinian security services increases security in the Territories? Where is the evidence that destruction of a sewage pump increases the security of Israel and Israeli citizens – something which I wholly understand they are passionately concerned about? Where is the evidence that taking bulldozers to the runway in Gaza airport is a contribution to the security of Israel?
We all know that sort of destruction of infrastructure, health and education services, people's livelihood and jobs destroys hope and any prospect of political stability and security.
The High Representative referred to what we are doing in Afghanistan and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Why is Europe spending EUR 600m this year in Afghanistan – EUR 200m from the Community budget? We are doing that not just out of humanitarian motives, but also to try to ensure a more stable and secure future for the people of Afghanistan. We know that economic development and social progress help contribute to political stability and to greater security. That is why we are making that investment in Afghanistan and why, so far, the European Union, the Member States and the Commission have pledged about 45% of what the World Bank and the UNDP say is going to be needed in Afghanistan over the next five years. I hope some others – the United States, Japan, Saudi Arabia – will be as generous as we have been in the next few years.
Why are we spending what we spent in the Balkans, in FYROM, for example? In the last few months, with the reconstruction agency starting to do as good a job in FYROM as elsewhere in the region, we have already repaired 400 houses, there will be 300 more repaired by April; electricity has been restored in Aracinovo; water and electricity are restored in Kumanovo. We have made a considerable contribution to restoring normality to Macedonia and will keep on doing that. Again, why? Not only because of a humanitarian impulse but also because we know from our experience in Europe that there is a relationship between economic stability and political stability and security. I do not labour this point as a sort of demented chartered accountant. I make these arguments because they are so obviously true. We know they are true from our experience. If you make people unemployed, if you destroy any infrastructure for people's social well being, then what you are doing is not only making their lives miserable but also, almost certainly, making sure that everyone's lives become more violent.
I hope that even now in the Palestinian Territories and in Israel more people will be prepared to listen to the moderates, to those who made their views about the future so bravely known at Kalandria checkpoint before Christmas. I hope that the Voice of Peace movement will be listened to because the people who argue in that brave way for peace are the only ones who really chart a way forward for the Middle East, for the Palestinian State in the future, and for Israel. Anybody who does not believe that should ask Members of this Parliament; should ask somebody like Mr Hume what helped to produce peace in Northern Ireland. It was moderates being prepared to stand up for their beliefs, it was moderates having the courage and decency to go out there and argue for what we all know is the only way in which you turn off the violence and turn on the peace and security.
Look at what has happened in South Africa, which the Voice of Peace Movement from the Middle East has recently been visiting – exactly the same process occurred there.
So in endorsing everything which the High Representative has said, I just wanted to ask this question: how many more people have to die before the voices of the moderates who are left in the Palestinian Territories and Israel are actually listened to by the citizens of those communities?
I have one potential confession: If I have to slip away for a couple of minutes during the course of the debate, it will be just to do my democratic duty in another place, where one of the Union's great institutions is meeting and discussing important matters relating to competition policy and other things. I will only do that if I have to and will return straight away to the debate.
The whole Parliament knows how tirelessly my friend and colleague, Mr Solana, has worked to restore some semblance of hope in the bloody shambles of the Middle East peace process, and to sustain the progress that the Union has undoubtedly made in bringing stability and hope to south-east Europe, and to the western Balkans in particular.
I have an admirable speech, which goes over all the issues which the High Representative covered so extraordinarily well. In order not to offend the intelligence of Parliament and to ensure that as many Members can take part in the debate as possible, I will not simply cover the issues which Mr Solana has covered with such knowledge and passion. I will just underline the strength of my agreement with everything the High Representative has said. He has pointed out the missed opportunities – one after another – which have brought so much savagery and violence to the region, beginning with the failure to implement the Mitchell report, and going on to the failure to respond with adequate generosity of spirit to the speech made by Mr Arafat on 16 September. He has touched on some of the appalling errors which have disfigured the history of the region, including the
shipment. What we have seen is a descent into violence: killings provoking more killings, violence, repression, senseless destruction. As the High Representative said, we do not have a Middle East peace process any more but – to use a phrase from a New York magazine a few weeks ago – a bloody feud. We have to remain engaged in order to try to restore some hope, and the High Representative set out some of the things the European Union is doing to press the case for peace and for a political settlement.
There is one thing on which I should like to focus – which the European Union has been doing and which is sometimes decried. We have been supporting the Palestinian Authority, and our support for the Palestinian Authority has first of all made certain that there is still a viable negotiating partner for the Israeli government. Secondly, it has made sure that there has not been a descent into anarchy in the Palestinian territories – because let us be clear that the alternative to a Palestinian authority is Palestinian anarchy.
What is the alternative to the substantial commitment we have made? In the last two years, we have spent about EUR 400m from the Community budget in the Palestinian territories, and that money has been carefully vetted month by month, in particular the contributions we make to the Palestinian Authority, to ensure that it is not spent on purposes of which this Parliament would not approve. It must be said that if the accountants of Enron had been one-hundredth as diligent as the IMF is, month by month, in looking at how our money is spent in the Palestinian territories, a lot more people would still have jobs and pensions to look forward to.
When one looks at that commitment and sees the extent to which projects we have started and others in which we have invested money have been destroyed, wilfully and purposefully, it is enough to make one literally weep. We have seen the destruction of projects worth about EUR 17m in which the European Union has invested – that is, just over a tenth of the total destruction of infrastructure which has been identified by the World Bank. And the World Bank argues, though this must be a very rule-of-thumb figure, that the Palestinian national income has been reduced by about USD 2.4bn as a result of what has happened over the last months.
I ask myself, and I ask Parliament: where is the evidence that any of that increases security?"@en1
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"Karine"1
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