Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-07-Speech-3-055"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050907.2.3-055"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Mr President, we have had a very good debate this morning. I am not in a position to respond to everything that has been said, but I simply wish to make four points for the House to consider.
My final point is in response to the criticisms that I did not sufficiently address the question of social and political action on Islam. I accept those criticisms. They were well made. Mr Lambrinides, Mr Wiersma, Mr Barón Crespo and Mrs Roure – with her points about justice – are all correct. We need to have a policy to address these questions and to take them forward.
We need to understand Islam; we need educational, social, and political action on that. As Mrs Roure said, we need to focus on a foundation of justice; we need to say that this nihilism is a perversion of Islam rather than Islam itself. As Mr Mayor Oreja said, we need to understand the role of organisations in these areas.
I do not have time to address the issues about Iraq that were raised by Mr Wurtz and Mr Fava. All I will say is that the 9/11 attacks took place well before the Iraq situation and terrorist atrocities have been committed over a period of time that has to be taken into account.
I hope and believe that during this Presidency we will take the decisive step to get all the institutions of the European Union – Parliament, the Council and the Commission – to raise the quality of our work on serious and organised crime and terrorism, and I commit myself to work in that direction.
Firstly, I very much welcome the style of the debate and the approach. I appreciate the contributions by Mr Poettering, Mr Schulz, Mr Watson and Mr Cavada, in particular Mr Cavada's remark that the time has come to work together in the next four months to reach an agreement on how to proceed. I welcome these indications of an approach, which were widely shared in the debate today, and, on behalf of the Council of Ministers, I can say that we want to work with you to resolve these questions in a positive way.
The second point, however, is that for me this debate has illustrated the dangers and the desire of some political forces to spread poison, malice and disinformation about these difficult and problematic matters. I refer in particular to the contributions of Mr Claeys, Mr Farage, Mr Borghezio, Mr Karim – a particularly ignorant and ill-informed contribution – and Mr Van Orden. It is very important that when we have this debate we look at the true facts and discuss them in a proper way, because unless we solve these problems others will use them for their own purposes.
My third point is a very important point of principle. Mr Voggenhuber said that we must defend our values by working within them. I agree entirely. To avoid any doubt, I absolutely respect the legal framework and the rights that need to be respected.
I shall take one example that has been mentioned, the terrible, tragic shooting of Mr de Menezes by the police the day after the bombings in London. In the United Kingdom legal system we have an independent police complaints committee which will investigate every aspect and report publicly and conclusions will then be drawn. The police and security services are properly accountable to society as a whole, even when a very tragic error has been committed. That is what should happen!
There is always a danger of errors and, of course, this Parliament is right to say that we have to ensure there is scrutiny and accountability. However, I say – certainly for the British Government but also for the Council as a whole – that we commit ourselves to such a legal framework and the terrible killing in question is an illustration of being able to do just that.
I will just add one other point. We have had suicide bombers in our city, people ready to blow themselves up, to destroy in terrorist attacks. It is legitimate for the police to consider how they can deal with that problem. I wish we did not have the problem, that we did not have suicide bombers at all. I wish I could snap my fingers and they would disappear. I cannot – they are here. In these circumstances, it is right for our police and security services to give proper thought to how we deal with a threat from that quarter, subject to scrutiny and debate and subject to operating in a legal framework. But that is what this Parliament should be about: asking what the correct procedures are in these areas.
That is why I say yes, we work within a legal framework. But I also say to my friend Mr Watson that human rights are indivisible, that is true, but we also have to recognise that there are individuals and organisations seeking to destroy these human rights and we have to defend ourselves against them against those people who want to destroy those very human rights for everybody. That is an obligation we have in addressing them."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples