Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-19-Speech-3-272"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20031119.10.3-272"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, given that the Union’s Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence launched the European Arms Agency at the beginning of this week with considerable media coverage, I am sorry to see how discreetly our Parliament is promoting this important debate, which has been incomprehensibly moved to the quiet of this cold Thursday night. This is a contrast in which, as a Member of the European Parliament, I take no pride.
Having said this, I wish, of course, to express my thanks to my colleagues from the other political groups for the spirit of cooperation and collaboration that I was shown from the outset in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. This approach enabled us to adopt a balanced, coherent and, therefore, credible report. The only reason I cannot claim to be totally satisfied is because the amendment I tabled to have the report’s fifteenth and final paragraph removed was not successful.
I believe that Parliament would do well to acknowledge that defence is an enormously sensitive field in political terms and currently falls directly within the competence of the Member States. Calling for codecision for industrial policy in the field of defence equipment is not realistic and affects the balance reached in the committee. I would therefore ask my fellow Members to accept the proposal that I tabled to have the paragraph removed.
Mr President, despite the fact that the European Union has already demonstrated its willingness to assume, in addition to the financial contribution it makes, further responsibilities for managing and undertaking peacekeeping operations – as we are currently seeing, for example, in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - weaknesses and shortcomings still remain. Like the conflict in the Balkans, the war in Afghanistan clearly demonstrated the disparities that remain between the United States and Europe in the field of military capability and of defence technology.
This difference in capability must, therefore, be reduced, in order to achieve a more balanced transatlantic cooperation, thereby increasing stability and security in the euro-Atlantic area. Increasing the Union’s military capability does not, however, mean that we need, straightaway, to create new structures and devote more financial resources to developing this policy in practice. We all know that the overall spending by Member States on defence is around half of what the USA spends, but that, in terms of military capability, this percentage falls to around 10%.
In this context, one might conclude that the budgetary resources the Member States allocate to defence capability are insufficient. On the contrary, because the Union does not have the same needs or the same strategic objectives as the United States, it is in a position to meet its needs with the financial means it has currently. This is primarily a question of Europe’s making better use of the financial resources available to it, and I will tell you how this can be done. Major changes have already taken place or are now taking place in the national defence-related industries in various European countries, in a concerted effort to improve the management of their industrial arms policies. The European Union, therefore, has an obligation to promote these attempts at approximation with the aim of ensuring the interoperability of means both at intra-European and transatlantic levels, in order to avoid pointless and wasteful duplication and overlapping. Furthermore, prudent harmonisation between regulations for the defence equipment market and for the civilian market is desirable, particularly in the case of the countless companies that produce for both markets at the same time.
It is clear, however, that defence equipment is not a product like any other and should be treated differently. A first step in this direction could be to simplify the administrative formalities governing intra-Community transfers of defence products, and gradually to harmonise national licensing systems. If these attempts to streamline are to succeed, there must be better coordination between Member States. Therefore, as I said at the beginning of my speech, we welcome the decision that has just been taken by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence to accept the objective of making the European Arms Agency operational as of June 2004.
To bring my speech to a close, I shall take this opportunity to summarise the main conclusions of the report that we will be voting on tomorrow. These are: increasing European military capability, so as to ensure the credibility of its foreign and defence policy objectives; improving the interoperability of defence equipment, at both intra-European and transatlantic levels, with a view to guaranteeing the security and stability of Europe and of the Atlantic area; establishing, in this framework, conditions favourable to developing a competitive and viable European defence equipment industry; better use of public monies in this field, in particular to prevent overlapping, by promoting industrial and technological interdependency and research linked to this sector; involving the new enlargement countries in this process of industrial reconversion; promoting adequate rules governing competition and security of supply while taking account of the gradual opening up of the arms markets; creating financial support measures for new defence equipment, in particular to develop equipment to protect the Union’s external borders, including its maritime borders; and, finally, the need to improve parliamentary monitoring and follow-up mechanisms for security and defence policy at both levels at which it is implemented - the European and the national levels - with the appropriate involvement of the respective parliamentary representations.
In today’s world, which is threatened by terrorism, security has become a global and indivisible concept, quite different to traditional concepts of security. The obligation incumbent on the European Union and on its Member States is, consequently, in cooperation with their allies, to streamline their military and arms capabilities and at the same time increase resources for diplomatic cooperation, for the information services and also for police and judicial cooperation in a genuine synergy of national and trans-national policies. This report on the defence industries seeks to contribute to enhancing the climate of collective security that we would all like to see. Support from my fellow Members of this Parliament will give it the political clout needed to bring about the changes it recommends."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples