Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-08-Speech-3-188"
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"en.20050608.17.3-188"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group, too, is glad that, after the ice age that temporarily characterised transatlantic relations, things are evidently now being put back on the right track. I think that the partners on opposite sides of the Atlantic have to understand just how very much they need each other if the values they share are to be defended and caused to prevail throughout the world. This means that the transatlantic summit is very important, for it will – it is to be hoped – help us to make progress.
I would also like to say how glad I am that our American friends have not, following the failure of the EU’s Constitution to gain acceptance in France and the Netherlands, shown any pleasure in our misfortune. I am sure that many of us expected a different reaction, and that this is something we have to regard as a good sign.
There are, nevertheless, a number of defects in the motion for a resolution as presented, and it is for that reason that my group has tabled amendments to it, which I would now – briefly – like to present. One area they touch on is that of climate change. Only today, we read in the news reports that not even Tony Blair has managed to get the United States to make concessions where climate change is concerned; our American friends are still, lamentably, blocking the way to effective protection against climate change, at a time when we are becoming aware of just how strong the connection is between combating poverty on the one hand and protecting against climate change on the other.
Finally, let me turn to human rights and international law. In the US, Senator Biden has yet again highlighted how important it is in terms of our American friends’ public image that the prisoner of war camp in Guantánamo should be closed down. Just now, we have again been reading about the mutiny of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Both these camps, along with other illegal camps around the world, must be closed down as a matter of urgency, for they are a disgrace that flies in the face of the United States’ values.
If we want to combat poverty, I see it as very, very important that we should not revert to competing to see who can invest most in armaments. Rather than allowing our age to be characterised by the setting of new records in spending on rearmament, we must do everything we can to discharge our responsibility to the world at large."@en1
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