Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-013"
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"en.20040331.1.3-013"2
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"Mr President, it has been a while since everybody left a European Council meeting smiling. I congratulate the presidency on a focused summit that delivered in many respects. This summit suggested that there is another Europe: one that can actually get things done.
European Liberal Democrats and Reformers welcome the new will to reach agreement on a European Constitution by the June European Council. President-in-Office, a combination of events and canny diplomacy have paved the way for agreement. In the words of an Irish blessing, 'may the road rise up to meet you'.
This House badly wants a deal, but our terms have not changed and will not change. We expect a treaty based closely on the Convention text. We expect the Council to respect the budgetary powers of Parliament and extend democracy in our Union through qualified majority voting and greater codecision. We expect the Council to make the difficult compromises needed in good faith and then go back to sell those compromises at home. This show will not be over in June. Ratification is a mountain still to climb.
This summit also acted decisively to fix the way we protect ourselves against terrorism in Europe. My Group welcomes the appointment of Gijs de Vries as anti-terrorism coordinator and demands that he be given a clear mandate to ensure he can get the job done. The next step is to reinforce the resources at Europol and set it to work: no new bureaucracy, no duplication, no more foot-dragging from European intelligence agencies who do not like to play with others. If this is not our frontline defence against terror then it is just a cheap gamble with the safety of Europeans.
Liberal Democrats and Reformers also back a strong commitment to ratifying existing instruments such as the European Arrest Warrant. We have proposed an implementation league table that will name and shame states which take lightly the safety of their citizens. The weekend's decisive tone has to translate into action. Let us be clear about that new decisive tone. Let us remember what Europeans – what Madrileños – had to endure. This House has been urging a more concerted policy on terrorism since before 11 September 2001. Let us recall that when the Commission asked for EUR 15 million for counter-terrorism intelligence last year, the Council offered EUR 1 million.
Europeans deserve better. A counter-terrorism policy conceived in panic is far too likely to invade private lives and erode public freedoms. On biometrics, on passenger data transfers – that is what we are in danger of getting.
My Group wishes to remind the Council that it has once again ignored the explicit demand of this House that it discuss detention without trial at Guantanamo Bay and that it commit to raising that issue with the Americans at the EU-US summit. Any European government that reckons on the issue going away has not reckoned on the will of this House.
My Group welcomes the commitment in Council to speeding up the pace of reform on the Lisbon Agenda. We remind the Council that 40% of the single market directives have not been implemented in all Member States. We remind the Council that the Growth and Stability Pact must be revived this year so that Europeans can have confidence in the sound management of Europe's economy. The tone of public debate in Germany and France suggests that European governments are not properly making the case for reform at home, whatever they may say in Brussels.
Before this summit I called for a sense of urgency on three areas: terrorism, the IGC and economic reform. To paraphrase W. B. Yeats, of our quarrels with others we make rhetoric, of our quarrels among ourselves we make poverty. The summit showed a willingness to get back to the business of Europe. Let us hope the political will holds and the momentum lasts – for all of our sakes."@en1
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