Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-14-Speech-2-021"
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"en.20041214.5.2-021"2
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"One of the chapters of the proposal for a decision put forth by the European People’s Party and European Democrats is about how to get Europe closer to its citizens. I firmly believe that establishing the Commission is in itself a step towards bringing European institutions closer to the citizens. The European Parliament is the only directly-elected body of the European Union, and with the election of the European Parliament and the establishment of the Commission, a clear and unequivocal direct link has been established for the first time in the sense that the parties with the most votes will have a more definite say in the Commission’s decisions on the issues that concern the citizens of Europe the most.
According to the European People’s Party and European Democrats, there are three fundamentally important questions to be addressed by the new Commission over the next five years: competitiveness, cohesion and security, all of which have been mentioned by the President of our party. I believe that growth, the encouragement of small and medium-sized enterprises and consequently job growth, research and development are fundamental goals of Europe that promote the welfare of European citizens. As far as research and development are concerned, let me add that it is the European People’s Party’s determined policy to promote ethical research. As to security, I would like to point out to the President as well, that if we examine the question of security from the European citizens’ viewpoint, then crime, crime that crosses borders, illegal immigration and terrorism are indeed interrelated questions. It is by no means an accident that notions of freedom, security and justice are so strongly dependent on each other and from the citizens’ point of view they are downright inseparable.
The third and perhaps most important task is cohesion, the creation of European unity. The newly-established European Commission inherited the pre-existing situation of an expanded Europe and if you are from one of the new Member States, you sometimes have the impression here in Parliament and also in other European institutions, that Europe, the European Union, has not fully realised the scale of its expansion yet. New opportunities for a united Europe need to be created, and further steps need to be taken to ensure the success of this enterprise, which is the greatest expansion of the European Union to date. This is not only in the vital interest of citizens from new Member States, but also in the interest of those from existing members. Therefore, cohesion policy must be improved and expansion must be consolidated. The expansion has only been completed from a legal point of view. There is still a lot to do on the social and economic front and the European Union must help new states catch up and provide the means to create unity within the European Union. With the expansion, the European Union has become a much more diverse place, but its problems have also become more diverse. These problems need to be solved and the new questions, such as minority rights, warrant adequate, joint European answers. I would like to emphasise the question of the Romany minority and all those that may be addressed with the help of the Commission, the cooperation of European institutions and by taking into account the opinion of the directly-elected members of Parliament."@en1
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