Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-09-Speech-2-165"
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"en.20020409.7.2-165"2
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"Mr President, it has often been said that the European Union is a kind of economic giant, but a military and political dwarf. It was difficult for the outside world to take this in at the time. The wars in Yugoslavia ultimately proved this quite emphatically for everyone to see. High-ranking military representing more or less the entire European arm of NATO commented on television that the Yugoslav National Army, in a state of collapse, would prove invincible for us. This gave an extremely depressing insight into the extent of our capabilities as the European Union and as NATO’s European arm. Fortunately, we have learnt from experience. We have learnt to be ashamed of what has happened, and progress has quite clearly been made. We even have the courage to assume certain tasks ourselves and to take over certain tasks from the Americans. Mention is being made of Macedonia and a specific role for the European Union, specifically in Bosnia.
So progress is being made. The courage to promote military expenditure, however, is still lacking. As Mr Patten stated a moment ago, there may be widespread support in this Parliament for an increase in the defence budgets, but one has to be extremely good at reading between the lines to establish that this is the case.
Even more important is, in fact, the lack of return on our efforts. It was demonstrated a moment ago why that is. Many factors come into play: different lines of reasoning, national arguments of a less rational nature, the reputation of the speaker, the economic industrial benefits and all kinds of other arguments which play a role when we talk about defence efforts and procurement.
We have, in fact, a great need for European policy based on a clear vision. And this is very obvious to the population, as was evident from the figures brought by Mrs Lalumière, but as we heard a moment ago, this message is not all that popular yet in many regions. In my view, we must continue to drive the message home. National sovereignty is to be welcomed, provided that it serves public security. And if this is not possible with a pure and simple disregard for national sovereignty, we should learn to take a broader view."@en1
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