Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-11-17-Speech-3-011"
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"en.20041117.3.3-011"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague Mr Désir will be speaking on behalf of our group to make some points about the issues raised by the Lisbon process, but I would like to point out that it is to evaluating the outcome of this process that my group in this House, and, I think, the Union as a whole must primarily devote their efforts, for the Kok Report, which you are discussing in the Council, has plain words to say about it. We are, quite simply, not fit enough, and it is on this that all our efforts – those of the new Commission, of the Council and of this House – must be concentrated. We in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament will lay great stress on this.
Rather like Mr Mayor Oreja, though, who has already spoken, I would like to say something about the area of freedom, security and justice. It was decided in the Council that 1 April of next year would be the latest possible date for the transition to majority voting and codecision in the areas of immigration and asylum policy and in other areas of justice and internal cooperation.
As has already been said, we demanded this in a resolution on 14 October. The only thing is that it was not this resolution of 14 October, but a lengthy process lasting five years, and so I want to make reference to someone who is not here, namely our former colleague and Commissioner, Mr Vitorino, as it is not least thanks to his tenacity that we are where we are at the end of the Tampere process. That is something I want to say loud and clear on behalf of our group.
What is this about? What I am going to talk about is the way in which the Commission, the Council and Parliament share in the responsibility for the balanced policy we will be putting together. The words you used at the beginning of your speech, when you drew attention to your own country’s situation, were, I think, extremely well chosen. The European Union and its citizens make demands where security policy is concerned, demands made of the Member States and of the EU, and with these demands we must comply. There is no time to be wasted; we cannot leave any room, any room whatever, to the enemies of fundamental citizens’ rights, to the enemies of democracy, to those who give expression to their blind hatred through murder and assassination in order to destroy the order that we defend. A strong democracy has the right to be strong and to take vigorous action against its enemies. In that, our group is always right alongside you.
That, though, is but one side of the coin. The other is that the state, the Union, the forces of law and order that are there to defend fundamental democratic freedoms, cannot curtail these rights while at the same time claiming to be defending them. It is easier to say that in this House than to do it in the real world – that I do know, but even so, we cannot stint in our efforts to keep on correcting the balance between the public’s right to be protected from uncertainty and the guarantee of their fundamental rights.
When, though, I hear certain of the debates in the Council or in the Commission, when I hear speeches by unsuccessful candidates for the Commission, I sometimes get the impression that this has to be said with more energy. Speaking as a German MEP, I cannot imagine that Libya, to take one example, is a country with much experience of the observance of fundamental rights. It follows that the quick and appealing solutions offered in the media market are not always the best ones.
Let me reiterate that if we want to combat illegal immigration – and it has for some time been one of my group’s articles of faith that we do – we must at last create the possibility of legal immigration. This House’s debate on the subject, which begins on 1 April next year, will open the door to that, to our being able – and we are willing – as legislators to help bring about a situation in which, if we want to establish security, we cannot simply talk in terms of illegal people, but can establish a framework within which they can become legal. That too is an opportunity that we will have from next 1 April onwards."@en1
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