Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-225"
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"en.20050906.32.2-225"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Grybauskaitė and representatives of the Council, I would like to start by thanking Mr Böge and the other speakers for their unambiguous statements earlier on in the debate, particularly in view of the serious wrangling that has gone on between our three institutions over the past nine months.
I will join them in recalling how, in response to this dreadful tsunami disaster and for the benefit of the world public, the Council announced Europe’s intention of making available EUR 350 million worth of aid for the tsunami’s victims. That was announced at the beginning of this year and was intended to run throughout 2005 and 2006. While we had a share in making this commitment, it is also, of course, by it that we have to judge the Council.
We have already heard about the fierce debates that have gone on, particularly in relation to the so-called flexibility instrument. About these, I have to come to the same conclusion as some of the previous speakers, namely that the debates we have had over the past nine months with the Council have sometimes been a cause for real shame, and I can do no other than forthrightly criticise the Council for the way it handled them.
I also take the view that the funds made available for other aid programmes in Asia, which some now want to use for emergency aid, must be replaced whatever happens; the Millennium Goals demand it, and I believe that the credibility of the European Union is at stake here. If you make promises of that sort and want global public opinion to give you credit for them, you must also have the political guts to put these resolutions into practice and make the necessary resources available.
Like others who have spoken before me, I regard the compromise that has emerged from our negotiations as highly problematic. I do believe, though, that the European Union had to consider the victims’ needs and could not have waited any longer to vote these funds once and for all and to make them available, for to do otherwise would have adversely affected its credibility.
I cannot, however, forbear to criticise the Council in strong terms for their petty-minded and obstructive approach to negotiation, particularly when set against what they have made known to the world.
Despite that criticism, and in view of the difficult negotiations that await us in 2006, I call upon them to ensure that these negotiations take a different course and that we will again be able to avail ourselves of the flexibility instrument for emergency situations such as these – that is to say, in the way it was intended to be used. A challenge such as that should not be met with a small-minded response."@en1
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