Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-13-Speech-3-262"
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"en.20050413.20.3-262"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking Mr Kuhne most warmly for his wide-ranging report. I believe it to be of the utmost importance that Parliament’s line on this Security Strategy is supported by four major political families in this House – the Greens, the Social Democrats, the Liberals and the group to which I belong, thereby putting us on a footing unheard of 10 years ago.
The report discusses the Security Strategy devised by Javier Solana, and this House shares his view of the threats. The three major ones are, without a doubt, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and conflicts among our neighbours with direct effects on the European Union as a result of floods of refugees having a direct impact on the public in it. What is absent from his analysis, in my view and that of many others, is homeland security, which is normally at the heart of all defence policy. If we consider the attention given to homeland security in the United States in comparison to how little we hear about it here in the European Union, then I think there is a deficit here that must be made good.
There is also, I believe, a need to add to the conclusions drawn as to what must be done. As the conclusion put forward in this report cannot be turned into practical actions, I believe it important that the next thing we need is a White Paper on European security and defence policy containing perfectly clear specifications of substance and timescale – rather clearer than what we have been given to date.
It is important that the crisis intervention force, which was very much virtual in nature when it was decided on in 1999, has today become active in reality: in Macedonia, in the Congo and now in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I was there on a visit with the defence sub-committee when, for the first time, a British general, bearing on his sleeve the European emblem with its stars, introduced himself to me as a European soldier, I realised that something had happened here that would reverberate throughout history; you, Mr Schmit, may mention ‘European troops’ or the ‘forces of the European Union’, only in passing, but there is no doubt that this is a development with historic significance.
It is in Macedonia that the general approach of relying on more than merely military action to deal with a crisis is proving itself; the European Union’s strength lies in the civilian aspect of peacekeeping, where we are doing more than the United States. It is a good concept. On the other hand – as we have seen in the sudden emergence of unrest in Kosovo – it is vitally important that we should not lose sight of the fact that our troops must remain capable of intervening and also of taking robust action if it is necessary to protect minorities. These are two of the tasks that our troops have to cope with there, and they are equally important and difficult.
Among the things we learned from our visit to Bosnia-Herzegovina was that the combat troops that are currently being mustered, some of whom – we hope – will be capable, as soon as possible, of short-term intervention and deployment, need the best equipment. What they are being called upon to undertake there are peacekeeping missions, but, should they need to carry out peacemaking missions or combat operations, the very diverse equipment that our troops there have will prove very much a disadvantage. We demand that what are being termed the European battle groups, which are currently being assembled, should be equipped as uniformly as possible, that they should be the first to get the latest equipment and should get it without delay, and that this be made a matter of priority. As we were also told when we were there, there is also a need for helicopters if large areas are to be secured, and also for additional mine-proof vehicles. We were told that it would take until 2010 for Bosnia-Herzegovina to become free of mines, so mine clearance is proceeding too slowly, and this needs to be made an additional financial priority for our work."@en1
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