Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-034"
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"en.20040331.1.3-034"2
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Irish presidency, the Taoiseach, Minister Roche and Minister Cowen for the progress they have made on the European Constitution. It is rare that I have an occasion to welcome the work of this government, but when it is earned I am willing to do so.
Having congratulated the Irish presidency, I should also like to extend my congratulations to the commitment and professionalism of the Irish civil service and the diplomatic corps, without whose support it would not have been possible to make progress. An enormous step forward has been taken, but we still must reach a conclusion on the text. As one of the 200 parliamentarians from every corner of Europe who prepared this text in open forum, may I say that what we have is a qualitatively different treaty proposal from any treaty that has ever been put before the people of Europe. It is therefore important that any further negotiations or any intent to change difficult compromises are made in as open a forum as possible. I believe that it will not be acceptable to this Parliament, or to the people of Europe, for deals to be done, behind closed doors, which seriously damage the coherence, the values, the objectives and the capacity to act that the current text provides. It is important, if we are going to have ratification by all 25 states, that the process in which the presidency is now engaged seeks to ensure that the people are also involved in that process.
With regard to the issue of terrorism, it has been correctly emphasised here that intelligence is the key to defeating terrorism. I would suggest that we need to take the notion of 'intelligence' in its broadest sense. The collection of information is important to prevent awful atrocities, such as those we have seen in Madrid. However, the use of our intelligence is also necessary to undermine the sense of alienation and injustice felt by many of those who are recruited to commit these kinds of awful acts. It is not enough for us to simply seek to improve our capacity to arrest, detain, charge and imprison, important as that is; we must guard against those actions that undermine the very rights that we seek to defend. We have to ensure that we also improve our intellectual capacity to analyse and understand exactly what is driving this new form of terrorism. It is not the same form of terrorism we have experienced in France, Ireland, Spain and elsewhere, by ETA and other terrorist organisations. We need to look seriously and seek to engage with those sections of the communities of Europe that are alienated to the point of murder and terror."@en1
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