Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-187"
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"en.20021023.4.3-187"2
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"Madam President, intelligence work is important if the open society is to be defended. That is why many countries have wisely chosen to strengthen their intelligence services in the light of 11 September, and there is, of course, also cooperation between the individual nations’ intelligence services.
I am, however, obliged to say, ladies and gentlemen, that, as things are at the moment, this is a national concern, and the cooperation that takes place between the countries’ respective services is therefore an intergovernmental concern and not a matter for the Council. One might wish it otherwise, but that is how matters stand at the moment. I neither wish nor am able, therefore, to enter into a more detailed discussion of the individual requests in Parliament’s decision from last year.
Like the Belgian Presidency, I am obliged to bear in mind the fact that I am a representative of the Presidency of the Council, and I must focus my contribution and what I say upon those states of affairs that affect the Council or the EU institutions.
The Council is able, and would like, to help strengthen cooperation on the protection of our communications. That is what I concentrated on in my speech, in which I particularly emphasised encryption as a means of protecting communications.
I have naturally listened with great interest to the debate, just as I listened when, as a Member of this Parliament, I attended a hearing on Echelon, chaired by Mr Gerhard Schmid. At that time, I was a Member of the European Parliament. Now, I am a Member of, and spokesman for, the Council, and I am obliged to stick to what, for the time being, is the Council’s, and therefore my own, role. I appreciate that Parliament does not find the EU’s efforts in this field to be sufficient, and that is something of which I have taken note. It is something I naturally take on board, but I am not in a position in which I can tell my esteemed colleagues that, yes, we shall do this or that. I do not have a mandate for saying that, and that is something I think Mr Gerhard Schmid too knows even better than I do."@en1
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