Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-11-Speech-1-102"
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"en.20050411.15.1-102"2
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".
Mr President, I have little to add: just three considerations. The first is that many Members have raised a fundamental issue, which I had already touched on in my earlier speech. There is no doubt that the three essential elements that make up Europe’s action, in the three great areas of freedom – which means the promotion and not just the protection of freedom – justice and security, must all develop together.
Lastly, a word on asylum and European asylum policy. Here too our approach should be and will continue to be balanced: minimum procedural rights are essential, and they are a first step. Our ambition is in future – soon, I hope – to put in place a European system for recognising or revoking refugee status without any differences in treatment, marked by a high standard of quality and not by levelling down to a common standard, as someone suggested.
We do not think that European policy can go back to being unbalanced, in the sense of addressing just the rejection of asylum seekers and not their acceptance and integration. Both aspects are relevant: there cannot be a suitable prevention or rejection policy if we are not willing to integrate those who come to Europe legally.
We shall certainly not be helping those who want to work honestly if we do not show that we take a clear, firm and rigorous stand against those who trade in human beings. These approaches are two sides of the same coin, and they will form the guidelines for Europe’s policy as far as the Commission is concerned.
To be even more explicit, in order to have adequate security we do not just need safeguards for people’s fundamental rights, but also actual development of the European area of justice. Clearly, on one side there are calls to harmonise or to try to bring some unity to certain basic principles – we shall be dealing with the subject of procedural rights in criminal proceedings in a few minutes – and I am highly in favour of this attempt at harmonisation, but then, of course, others say there is a need to consider the great difference in traditions, history and culture in our legal systems.
It is clear, then, that the Commission must take account of that as well. We shall certainly always work hard for these three great areas to develop in parallel in a balanced way.
Regarding fundamental rights in particular, it has been asked what the group of Commissioners that President Barroso announced to Parliament is doing. The working group was, of course, set up last December. It has met many times; President Barroso presides directly and I act as Vice-President of the group, coordinating the necessary initiatives together with other colleagues. We have set out a road map – a series of actions and principles that we shall be addressing; we are already addressing some of them. Earlier I mentioned the subject of child protection; this is one of the subjects on which we have focused over the first few weeks and will continue to focus in future.
We have many other topics and, of course, when Parliament would like to listen to me directly in the Commission speaking about the progress that the group of Commissioners has made in its work, I shall be ready to do so.
We have mentioned racism and anti-Semitism as subjects that must remain on Europe’s agenda. I add my hopes to those of the President-in-Office of the Council when I say that Europe must not give the impression of being so feeble that it cannot reach an agreement, albeit not an easy one, by June, on a subject that has been before the Council of Ministers of Internal Affairs and Justice for a good three years. In hoping for this I am also, of course, appealing for agreement to be reached on this text at last and for there to be a joint framework that respects subsidiarity. I do not want the citizens of Europe to be told that after three years of debate we have not succeeded in duly affirming the fundamental principle that racism must not be allowed into Europe. This is another point on which the group of Commissioners has been working and will continue to work.
Much has been said on personal data protection. Nobody has a mind to create a European big brother that intercepts everything and keeps everything on file; the Commission, of course, has not the slightest intention of doing anything of the sort. We are thinking of a balanced initiative, which will first of all take account of the specific requirements of investigating certain serious cross-border crimes – terrorism, certainly, but also trafficking in human beings and paedophilia – and will be made available to specifically identified authorities for an appropriate time. There will thus be nothing like a permanent database, which none of us considers compatible with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Commission will be putting forward its own proposal, as we have our doubts about the legal basis proposed by the Council. I have said it several times already and I shall say it again: in a few weeks’ time our proposal will be ready to be examined by the Council. We shall take account of Parliament’s assessments on this subject, as we have taken account – we must never forget this – of assessments by personal data protection authorities. These authorities have formed a body of undoubted expertise, including technical expertise, and have given appraisals that are often critical of the Commission’s proposals.
We certainly take their appraisals into account and we shall continue to do so, but if, for instance, their appraisal of that proposal is favourable, we shall have a strong argument on our side, in the sense that the proposal respects the fundamental right to data protection."@en1
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