Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-28-Speech-3-282"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050928.24.3-282"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my friend and colleague Mr Lambsdorff has already spoken on behalf of the group and poked fun at me, on behalf of the Liberal component of the group, by describing the glass as half full. It is up to me, perhaps because I belong to the Democrat component of the group, to try to reflect a little on the empty half of the glass.
We have all experienced a contradiction in recent weeks: interest around the world has been growing as never before in the role of the United Nations and the role of Europe. It is a big question, but whenever we have a chance to respond to that growing expectation, we fail to achieve a result.
The document we approved in the United Nations was not one with which to start reflecting on the UN: it was to implement a debate that was already two years old. We realise, however, that between August and September a number of difficult topics disappeared from the table; others were only confirmed in principle, and we stopped there; and yet others were put off until subsequent negotiations. That is how things stand.
There has been no reform of the Security Council, no progress on the relationship between disarmament and non-proliferation, and no clear condemnation of terrorism, although there has been a vague definition of terrorism. A body like the Human Rights Council exists only in principle. Even what has been presented as a great step forward, that is, the new ‘right to protect’ rule, says, as one realises if one reads it carefully, that the Security Council will assess each situation on a case-by-case basis, which means that we are in the same position as before Rwanda.
Nothing has changed. We have said that there is a principle, but on every occasion we have to establish whether it applies in that case. What does all that mean? It means that, even though we have reiterated the Millennium Goals, we have missed an opportunity. The document is rather like our work in Europe: we are not in crisis, our bureaucracy works, and we produce documents. We make thousands of decisions, but they are often decisions that the people do not expect from us, and we are unable to make the decisions that they do expect from us.
That is our problem. A 35-page document that removes the most difficult items is not a successful document: it is a document that drowns its difficulties in a sea of pages. Therefore, all that I want to say is that this Summit has, instead, shown the extent to which Europe today needs to count as a political unit, a single political unit, within which we have commercial weight because we have a single will. We have a role in the world; in situations where we are split into 25 parts we do not, or we have much less of a role than we think.
We are in the middle of a pause for reflection after the referendum defeats. Let us not turn this pause for reflection into a Mexican siesta; let us wake up a little before then."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples