Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-14-Speech-2-152"
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"en.20030114.5.2-152"2
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"Mr President, I should like to welcome the Greek prime minister and wish him every success. We all know that Greece is a relatively small country. No one expects any miracles. But they do expect the right approach. This is not the first Greek Presidency; there have been two previous presidencies, both of which left themselves open to a great deal of criticism. However, the previous presidencies held by the same party, PASOK, when Andreas Papandreou was prime minister, did leave us one useful legacy: a fighting stance, which often went against the grain, on the question of peace. I trust that this positive trend, which is demonstrated both by our country as a whole and its ruling party, will continue today, especially on the question of Iraq. As the chairman of the Greens quite rightly said, you cannot hide behind the Security Council. With four members in the Security Council, the European Union should be fighting to block a war.
I listened very closely to the prime minister’s speech and I should like to comment on three points which worry me. First, the fact that the prime minister said that this is a joint annual programme of the Greek and Italian presidencies. In my opinion, Mr Simitis is – and needs to be – one thing, and Mr Berlusconi is another, and I fail to see how they will find any common ground on social issues, on democratic issues, on the issue of relations with the USA or on media issues. A second point which worries me is that agricultural policy – and I am thinking here of small family-run holdings, especially in the south, being squeezed by reforms and by what is happening in the World Trade Organisation – warranted no more than one line at the end of the prime minister’s speech. I expect him to refer to this at greater length in his next speech. And the third point has to do with social issues. Mr Prime Minister, I am waiting for Greece to apply Directive 70/1999 on fixed-term work. It should have started applying this directive on 10 July 2002 but has yet to do so. Please do not put Mrs Diamantopoulou in the unenviable position of having to institute proceedings against Greece before the European Court."@en1
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