Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-11-Speech-3-027"
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"Mr President, it is with great interest that I have followed the debate, which tended to give an assessment not only of this year but of this parliamentary term as a whole as regards the field of freedom, security and justice. It is a difficult assessment to make because it has many aspects: there are the political and legal aspects, and then there is the social aspect on which progress must be made. The political aspect involves the will of the Member States; the legal aspect is based on the instruments made available by the Treaty; as regards the social aspect, it has no logical basis whatsoever insofar as it is dictated by the continuous development of the framework in which the European area of freedom, security and justice is to be implemented.
In view of the time available to me, I will deal mainly with the political aspect. It is the declared intention of the majority of Member States – unfortunately not all of them – to extend and consolidate the area of freedom, security and justice in response to an increasingly explicit desire on the part of European citizens to pave the way to solidarity and extend the areas of cooperation in relation to the reception of new waves of immigrants, smoothing out the inconsistencies that still exist with regard to the recognition of the right to asylum, citizenship and establishment in any EU country.
I am pleased that this attitude can be traced back to the tremendous incentive provided by the demands contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights for European citizens, which was launched in Nice in 2000 and waiting to be included in the Constitution. It is a document that can be compared to good wine: at first it did not make much impression being rather weak and imperfect but, with the passage of time, the intrinsic quality of the text increasingly emerges wherein we find precise reference points for all the choices and measures required of us in this difficult phase of our history.
A further step forward will be achieved by approval at second reading of the directive on the free movement of Community citizens, their rights and responsibilities, of which I am rapporteur. This provides for a raft of urgent measures that must be consolidated in order to be able to deal effectively with the new tasks imposed on us by the increasingly huge and chaotic arrival of citizens from third countries.
With regard to the report in question, Mr President, Commissioner, the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has set 18 March as the date for its approval. Almost all the political groups have accepted the rapporteur’s request not to table amendments to the text issued by the Council, in which only 50% of Parliament’s requests are included. Agreement with the Commission has also been reached on that point.
We are convinced that this directive, although not perfect, must be implemented during the current term of office, preferring to see the glass half full rather than half empty: in other words, better to have half the requests rather than to refer it back indefinitely. We hope the Council is able to appreciate this responsible position so that citizens may be given at least that part of the reforms which are contained in the text and which constitute, in any event, important steps forward to give legal substance and political dignity to the status of European citizen."@en1
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