Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-25-Speech-3-145"
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"en.20050525.16.3-145"2
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".
Mr President, I happen to be the chairman of the committee on which the rapporteur and Mr Muscat sit. I wish to begin by endorsing what Mr Muscat said. In our committee it is always very difficult to get interpretation into the mother tongue from even large countries – Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic; countries that are now at the heart of our European Union. However, if we cannot speak in mother tongue languages in this Chamber, where it is known that we have an interest in the debate taking place, what kind of European Union do we have? I just want to endorse in the strongest terms what has been said here today by Mr Muscat.
I hope I will get injury time on Mr Muscat’s behalf for saying that, because I now want to make some warm remarks about the rapporteur, Mr Nassauer. I want to thank him for the work he has done at a time when he was enormously engaged in the REACH proposals, which are now before our committee. He has taken a subject of real public relevance: the security of the citizen and how best we ensure it. He has found an effective compromise and I hope our own amendments in the IMCO Committee, of which he is also a distinguished member, will support that. He has been able to tread the perilous path between alarmism on the one hand and complacency on the other.
My main concern with the amendments we tabled was to ensure that ordinary consumers would not be disproportionately inconvenienced in carrying out financial transactions, whilst we know that we need to combat money laundering. This, of course, is not the first money laundering definition.
I do not know whether Thomas Jefferson would approve, but the times in which we live need a balance to be struck between liberty and security. However, we do not want to exchange one category of vulnerability for another. The vulnerable citizen can be made vulnerable by excessive security measures, as well as by the processes of terrorists themselves.
Just at the time that our committee was describing these matters, a terrorist bank raid took place in Northern Ireland – the largest bank raid in the history of that province. That shows the importance today of stopping up the areas where terrorists operate and finance themselves.
The various draftsmen of opinions from the different committees have all provided the expertise which was properly supportive of what Mr Nassauer has done. This is a compromise to which the banks, the lawyers, the accountants, the notaries and the ordinary citizen can look with confidence. I hope this dossier will, therefore, be concluded at first reading. Terrorists cannot succeed unless they have the financial means with which to do so. We, however, need to measure our response to this unprecedented terrorism with the needs of the citizens’ own defences for the sake of civil liberties."@en1
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