Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-12-Speech-3-184"
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"en.20050112.10.3-184"2
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".
Mr President, despite quite a few differences of opinion, we must, as a matter of urgency, improve relations between the USA and the European Union, which have, to a greater or lesser degree, gone sour. Paradoxically enough, it is the re-election of George W. Bush that offers the opportunity of making a new start in transatlantic relations. After all, President Bush, as he has already indicated himself, needs European involvement in order to be successful in the core task of his foreign policy during his second term in office: the fight against terrorism and, particularly, addressing the problems in the Middle East. In that respect, the interests of the United States and Europe still run parallel to a large extent, even if the gulf between us sometimes seems wider than ever. We have a few difficult years behind us, particularly where Iraq is concerned. President Bush has announced his wish to strengthen relations with his European partners, and in this light, we warmly welcome his visit to Europe next month.
Both sides have to make an effort if there is to be a significant improvement in relations. The Americans will need to take greater account of their European partners’ views than they have done before, but Europe, in turn, will need to be prepared to let its own former differences of opinion become a thing of the past. We are therefore hopeful that the Americans will reassess their relationship with their European partners. We are also cautious and even somewhat sceptical, because for the time being, there are no concrete signs of real changes of direction on the part of the Americans. I am therefore convinced that in the near future, we will, in this House too, have even more extensive debates on transatlantic relations when the time comes to discuss an own-initiative report on the subject. We believe Europe must adopt a clear common position, on which basis it can conduct dialogue with the United States on how to tackle world problems together. The debate on transatlantic relations is therefore closely linked to the European debate about our own effective common foreign policy. In that respect, it is impossible to ignore the, at times, fundamental differences of opinion on how to tackle global problems. The fact that a number of issues, including Kyoto, the International Court of Justice, the disarmament issue and non-proliferation, will also be mentioned in the next few years is, to us, an important point in the discussion. These are all areas in which the differences are often still gigantic.
Legitimacy of international action is one of those points we would actually like to mention, where the difference of opinion in the debate of the past few years has been crucial. The guiding principle of European external policy is multilateralism. We remain of the opinion that a decision to intervene should lie with the UN and cannot be taken by individual countries or coalitions of countries. Europe should defend that position, and we must make it an absolute priority to reform the United Nations and make it a truly effective and representative platform. It is preferable that this be done in tandem with the Americans, but we should not shy away from tabling our own proposals."@en1
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