Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-11-Speech-3-037"
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"en.20040211.1.3-037"2
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".
Mr President, I want to thank very sincerely the Members of this House for the honour they have conferred on me in hearing me today and also for the very comprehensive and wide range of opinions that have been expressed here. I do not agree with every opinion, but I have listened intently to the debate and am conscious of the fact that if I were to mention all the contributors, the short time available to me for reply would be completely exhausted – that is before I even address the very important issues that many of them raised and the very important themes which recurred in the contributions.
I would also like to deal with the migration issue. It is fashionable to say that the Justice and Home Affairs Council concentrates on combating illegal immigration and that there is not sufficient emphasis on legal migration and its implications, such as integration and the like.
I should like to echo the sentiments expressed by Mrs Banotti, which I believe are shared by many people here, that migration – inward migration into the European Union – is not merely inevitable, but desirable. Europe needs to be enriched culturally, economically and socially by the possibilities of migration. Migration should not be regarded as negative, something to be controlled or discouraged. Migration is undoubtedly a phenomenon of the globalised world in which we live. Societies that can deal with migration positively and without fear are societies that are, as a consequence, much richer and more just internally.
There are two outstanding opinions which, for the purposes of getting through our presidency agenda, we look forward to receiving from Parliament. I mentioned this in committee last month. I should like to emphasise again that I would ask Parliament for its cooperation in this respect.
As regards the whole issue of the IGC, it is the role of the Irish presidency to attempt to consult, reflect and report to the March Council meeting on possible progress on the IGC. I believe that whether such progress is made quickly or slowly, it is a very important task for the Irish presidency to make as much progress as possible in bringing together the Member States behind the drive to implement a new constitutional treaty for the European Union.
In relation to one aspect of that treaty, many Members have spoken about the need for transparency. There has been an undercurrent of concern in this morning's debate about the lack of transparency and a sense of the lack of consultation with and exclusion of Parliament in the Justice and Home Affairs area. I have already mentioned the level of consultation that exists at the moment. One of the difficulties of getting 15 – shortly to be 25 – Member States to agree on proposals lies in the need to have some elbow room, to negotiate with them and for them to express their positions on paper. I ask Parliament to at least understand that all the working papers – some of which reflect the shifting positions of Member States – could, on the one hand, be thrown open to public scrutiny; but on the other hand, the character of those papers would probably be altered if they were to be the subject of constant scrutiny. The flexibility and the willingness of Member States to make concessions, once they had established a position on paper, could be significantly impaired if every single action in the deliberative process was to be thrown open to the widest possible scrutiny. So I ask Members of this House to understand that there is a balance to be struck between accountability and efficiency in a deliberative process involving 25 Member States.
I want to thank each and every Member for the very constructive and stimulating debate. I know that both the presidency and the Commission intend to take on board all of the contributions that have been made here. I thank Parliament for its courtesy in hearing me today.
Firstly, in relation to the issue at the heart of a number of contributions – whether we are looking backwards or forwards – it is the Irish presidency's humble task to accomplish the outstanding agenda items as far as it can. It will be for Commissioner Vitorino to come to the June Council with his retrospective look at what has been achieved in the time period contemplated by the Amsterdam Treaty and to set the scene, if he will, for a Tampere II agenda, the starting process for which will be developed under the Netherlands presidency. For Ireland and its presidency, on the contrary, it is a matter of addressing the issues that are still outstanding on the agenda and concentrating its efforts in relation to them.
Mention has been made of the slow progress in relation to the two major Amsterdam imperatives: the directives in relation to asylum. It will be a very considerable task to secure the agreement necessary to bring those two measures forward to completion. In relation to one of them – the Asylum Procedures Directive – I have to say that even if I have political agreement on that issue before 1 May, my successor will have to come back to the newly elected European Parliament to achieve the necessary codecision. Therefore, I do not want to create any unrealistic expectations as to what can be achieved. However, in relation to all these measures, a lot of time has elapsed, and I agree with a number of Members who express a sense of frustration that the deadlines set at Amsterdam and Tampere have not been adhered to at political level. There is a saying in the English language: 'you can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink'. This is one of the problems. You have to decide whether the political will is there. Are people willing to carry out the mandates that, in a burst of enthusiasm, they may adopt at a Council meeting? Are they willing to do the basic political work to achieve the implementation of the agendas they have set themselves?
A second point about the area of freedom, security and justice is this: it is not a repressive but an uplifting agenda. I want to echo a number of contributions here that remind us that the fight against crime, for instance, is a positive struggle to enhance and vindicate the rights of people who would otherwise be victims of crime. Thus, it is not a matter of ministers of the interior or ministers for justice at JHA level combining to think up new repressive measures, but the obverse side of the coin, which is about the rights of individuals and the right to fully enjoy an area of freedom, security and justice.
I echo what Mr Collins, Mr Beysen and others have said about the importance of practical cooperation. Terrorists are not afraid of a framework decision. Terrorists are not even afraid of some of the outworkings of decisions on terrorism, such as enhanced penalties for those who are convicted. The main thing the European Union can do in relation to terrorism is not at paper level, but in the area of pragmatic, concrete cooperation on a day-to-day basis between the various agencies in the Member States and the European agencies, to make sure that the scourge of terrorism does not destroy the area of freedom, security and justice that we are building.
So we can never simply consider these matters on a legislative or paper policy basis. We have to look at them on a pragmatic, concrete, cooperative basis as well. That also has to be said in relation to Europol. What is needed is to make that agency function, not to consider endlessly to whom it should be accountable, so that it is the engine of cooperation among the Member States in the fight against terrorism.
Sometimes there is a danger that we engage in the politics of the Book of Genesis: let there be light – and there is light. In my view that approach is appropriate in some areas where it is important to create a political agenda and to create a legal framework for certain areas of progress; but we should also be very conscious that we cannot simply legislate for security, freedom and justice. We must act to achieve these outcomes.
Mrs Karamanou and Mrs Banotti mentioned practical issues to do with civil law and its application to victims of illegal trafficking for sexual purposes, and also family law areas. I believe that very substantial progress has been made in these areas so far, but there is a lot more to be done, particularly in relation to the protection of ordinary people's rights: the right not to be exploited sexually or, for instance, the right to have access to one's children. In all of those areas we have to ensure that the emerging new European Union is an area which upholds those rights, rather than an area which creates new opportunities for people to avoid those rights.
Mr Hernández Mollar referred to the issue of terrorism and the commemoration of the victims of terrorism. His is a view with which I personally very much sympathise. Sometimes we see terrorism purely as a newspaper story, but we must concentrate on upholding the rights of victims and acknowledging the terrible damage that terrorism does."@en1
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