Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-07-Speech-4-240"
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"en.20020207.14.4-240"2
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"Mr President, I join my Scottish colleagues in asking the Commissioner to help us to resolve this situation as urgently as possible.
It may surprise the Commissioner to have such a representation from Scotland, but Scotland is probably one of the greatest victims of this situation in the Channel Tunnel. Because of the reduction in transit through the Tunnel, we do not have a mere three services a night – we have none, because the service from Scotland to the continent has been withdrawn completely. As Mr MacCormick said, it is no longer possible to transport Scotch whisky to the Continent or to send our microcircuits to Paris, Frankfurt or Milan. But more than that: it is no longer possible for us to import parts and continental products by train. Costs for both exports and imports are increasing, as are road congestion and pollution.
A service which did something to bring Scotland closer to the golden triangle of Europe has been lost, and so Scotland returns to the periphery. This is a tragedy, and why? Because we seem incapable of organising our immigration systems on a European basis and of providing adequate security to ensure that any such arrangement works. Clearly there are faults on the French side of
and on the English side of the English Channel, but the victims are my constituents – hundreds of miles from Dover and Calais – in Scotland.
I call upon the UK government to resolve its immigration system, in collaboration with its neighbours, so that it does not attract tens of thousands of desperate people. It is surely not coincidental that the UK is one of the only European countries without identity cards.
I call upon the French authorities, from their old allies of the Auld Alliance, their Scottish cousins, to enforce real security at their end of the Tunnel so that the rail freight service to and from Scotland can be resumed.
I call upon the Commissioner and the Commission to knock all their heads together urgently in order to reach a solution to this absurd state of affairs."@en1
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"La Manche"1
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