Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20020313.3.3-053"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the framework for our transatlantic relations, I believe we have to start with the current framework, which is the Madrid Declaration of December 1995, issued under the Spanish Presidency. I do not recall that the President-in-Office of the Council mentioned this declaration, which defines our framework; I do not know whether that is because a Socialist government adopted it, but in any case, as it was the Presidency of the Union, I recommend that he should take it into account this May, and Mr Elles will not deny this since we worked together at the time for the Spanish Government to push this very important declaration through the Council.
I really must say to the President-in-Office of the Council that I believe this declaration should be brought up to date, for various reasons. First, because of the situation since 11 September: we have not merely shown our solidarity with the United States, but we have also adopted measures. In this fight, however, as in all others – I must be frank about this – we are allies, but we have to work together on an equal footing, and our American allies – as some ministers in the Union have said – must understand that we are equals and subservience has no place here, which means that we must not systematically bow to unilateral decisions. This applies to many things. We have to act jointly in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the Balkans; it is to be hoped that the United States will reconsider their position on Kyoto and especially with regard to certain worrying announcements by the Bush Administration.
With regard to the specific question of the steel issue, which the Commissioner, Mr Lamy, has developed further, we believe that we must adopt a firm stance and we also support taking reprisal measures. We do not understand why, for example, the United States trade representative, Mr Zoellick, is today developing the worldwide international conspiracy theory to say that the United States is being attacked through steel imports. The history of the European Union began with the Coal and Steel Community, which was a restructuring process. I understand that Mr Bush wants to win elections, but what the Americans have to do is restructure their steel industry, which will demand sacrifice, and we should not have to pay for the restructuring of American industry. We have to make this quite plain and, in addition, there are proposals such as applying a 2% surcharge so as to be able to restructure the industry. What does not make sense is that we should have to pay this, when in this Parliament we systematically have to deal with the banana war, hormones and GMOs, and we always have to check the list to see what reprisal measures we can take within the bounds of our own countries.
Our American friends and allies have to understand that we cannot go on working like this, and we therefore call on the Commission to take the strongest line possible to make them see reason."@en1
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