Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-14-Speech-3-015"
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"en.20051214.6.3-015"2
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Mr President, let me begin by apologising to honourable Members for the momentary delay in my arrival here from the airport this morning. Let me also assure this House that I have listened with great care to the statement that we have just heard from the President of the Commission and I look forward to the contributions of honourable Members to this important and timely debate that we are having here today ahead of the European Council.
President Barroso and High Representative Solana will report back to Heads of Government on the progress made and on the next steps. Let me pay tribute to the work that they have already done and the close cooperation they have offered on those and so many other issues in the course of our Presidency.
Secondly, there is the issue of economic reform. Here we continue to work closely with the Commission in pursuing the jobs and growth agenda for Europe. This has borne fruit these last few months with the launch of the Lisbon national reform programmes, setting a forward-looking agenda of reforms for every Member State. The summit will welcome this progress, as well as the significant steps taken already on the issue of better regulation. That includes simplifying European Union legislation, both for citizens and for European businesses, and underlining our common responsibility as Council, Commission and Parliament to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens.
Thirdly, we will adopt a Europe-wide counter-terrorism strategy, creating a clear and coherent framework for the European Union’s work on counter-terrorism and setting out concrete objectives for action. The strategy enhances the European Union’s work to prevent people turning to terrorism. We will adopt an action plan to tackle radicalisation and recruitment by terrorist organisations. It will work to protect further the European Union citizens and infrastructure. We will put in place a programme for protecting critical infrastructure right across Europe from terrorist attack. It improves the European Union’s efforts to disrupt terrorists and their terrorist networks, in particular combating terrorist financing. The strategy will help the European Union build its ability to respond to a terrorist attack by improving our crisis management capability and coordination. The Council hopes that we will have reached agreement on the measure on data retention, on which we have worked very closely and effectively with this Parliament in recent days and months.
Next, the summit will set out a global approach to migration. This is an approach that learns the lessons of the events of the last few months and is informed by the discussions we had here in the plenary debate in October. It focuses on the problems of Africa and the Mediterranean but does not exclude the important and necessary cooperation which we need to foster with other regions. It identifies priority actions for the Union to take so as better to help countries of origin and transit to manage migration better and to combat illegal immigration.
Fifthly, let me highlight the regular report on European security and defence policy to the Council. The report will register the difference our European missions are already making on the ground, including the two latest missions: in Aceh – our first in Asia – and on the Rafah border crossing in Gaza, a practical manifestation of the Union’s longstanding commitment to the lives and freedoms of the Palestinian people.
The European Council is also expected to adopt an overarching declaration on that area of the world – the Middle East. This will renew our commitment to a secure, prosperous and peaceful Middle East, as well as our efforts to support political, social and economic reform within that region. The declaration will reflect what the European Union has achieved over the course of our Presidency: the first ever EuroMed Summit in November, which has set the agenda for our future relations with our southern Mediterranean neighbours, support for disengagement from Gaza, building Palestinian institutional and security capacity, launching the European Union border assistance mission to Rafah and increased European Union engagement with Iraq. But it will also set out the continued challenges that we face in that region: the search for peace between Israel and its neighbours, the political processes within Iraq and Lebanon, Iran’s nuclear programme – a subject that we have debated here in this Chamber – and ending support for groups that use violence.
Let me just pause here to note that the Presidency has been unequivocal in its condemnation of the comments attributed to President Ahmadinejad of Iran which relate to Israel, firstly saying that Israel should ‘be wiped off the map’ and then denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel to be removed to Europe. The comments are wholly unacceptable and we condemn them unreservedly. They have no place in civilised political debate.
Finally, Heads of State or Government will also adopt a comprehensive global strategy for Africa, tackling peace and security, governance, regional integration, trade and development assistance. It will refocus the Union’s relationship with Africa to cover the whole continent. It will be a fitting end to a year in which the continent has taken centre stage in the European Union and internationally, and in which we have seen extraordinary popular calls for change throughout Europe to make poverty history.
The European consensus on development is the second theme of today’s debate. It is right that we should return to the subject of development as we approach the end of this year and the end of this Presidency. Over the course of the year the European Union – already the largest provider of global aid – has again demonstrated the leading role which it plays in this area of work. The European Union set the tone for the Millennium Review Summit with its commitment from the International Development Ministers to increase aid back in June, a decision that was then ratified by Ecofin. As the consensus on development shows, however, this is not the time for us to rest on our laurels: we must not only spend the money but also spend that money well.
This tripartite declaration sets out the aims and principles guiding European Union development cooperation efforts. The first part is a political declaration that sets out common objectives, principles and methods for delivering development cooperation at both Member State and Community level. The second part guides the implementation of development aid at Community level. The Council and the Commission agreed the consensus on 22 November, following extensive discussions between all relevant European Union institutions and after consultation with other key stakeholders, including European civil society. We hope Parliament will agree to this today so that it can be a truly joint tripartite declaration.
This week’s European Council in Brussels takes place at the end of a tumultuous year for the European Union. It has been a year in which the voters of France and the Netherlands rejected the draft Constitutional Treaty; a year in which the need for Europe to face the realities of a globalised economy has become ever clearer; and most tragically, a year in which terrorism has once again struck in the streets and trains of a European capital. But Europe has responded. We have developed a clearer sense of our common response to globalisation. We have shown a sheer determination, which Mr Schulz has been generous enough to acknowledge in previous debates in this Chamber, in the face of terrorism which has reaffirmed the strength of our solidarity, our democratic values and our common resolve to see those values triumph. We have asserted Europe’s truly global role and responsibility, whether it is in New York, in Montreal last week, the Gaza Strip, or in Aceh, Indonesia.
The Presidency would like to extend particular thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Wijkman, for his commendable efforts to ensure Parliament’s substantive and constructive input to this important text. This agreement would be the first time we would have a common European Union approach to development, which will guide the actions of the Community and all 25 Member States. The consensus focuses squarely on poverty eradication to help meet the Millennium Development Goals, on partner country ownership, on ensuring we provide more effective aid and on joined-up policies to promote development. This agreement is particularly important, given that the European Union already provides over half of all global aid and is set to provide two thirds of aid by 2015 on the basis of the commitments that have now been made.
The consensus also sets out a revised EC development policy which clarifies the Commission’s role and establishes where it adds value. It ensures that we give priority to the poorest countries and that we take into account development objectives in all other policy-making that affects developing countries. The consensus is an important political statement, against which all parties can be held to account. I hope that it will receive your support.
This will, frankly, be an important but difficult European Council, but, approached with flexibility and vision, we can make significant progress on some of the most important issues facing the Union and set the scene for further work by our Austrian and Finnish colleagues in the coming year. I will listen with great interest to the points that you make and ensure that they are narrated back ahead of what will be important discussions in Brussels towards the end of this week.
The United Kingdom has been truly proud to hold the Presidency of the Council during these last six months. Let me put on record, on this occasion, our gratitude to the Members of this Parliament for the cooperation they have shown in facing this challenging but shared agenda.
The primary task facing the European Council this week is both necessarily and appropriately to agree the financial perspectives of the European Union for 2007-2013, to which the President of the Commission directed the majority of his remarks this morning. It has always been one of the key challenges of our Presidency. Following the failure to reach political agreement last June, we listened to the calls of those, not least in the new Member States, who underlined the importance of agreement being reached by the European Council this year, and we have worked long and hard towards that end.
The proposals we put on the table a week last Monday, which were discussed by foreign ministers first in the informal conclave last week and then again briefly at the General Affairs Council this week, are challenging for Member States – I acknowledge that – and so, too, will be the revised proposals which we will table later today. Those revised proposals will be realistic, too, given the budgetary context in which most Member States are now operating nationally. Let me be candid: the room for negotiation is narrow. We remain convinced, on the basis of our extensive consultations with other Member States, including at the level of Heads of Government over the last week when a number of Heads of Government came to London and there was a range of bilateral contact beyond London, that these proposals remain the best and only basis for agreement within the Council and subsequent discussion with Parliament. They are an important and necessary step in the direction of a modern, reformed budget, fit for the purposes of the 21st century, about which our Prime Minister spoke so eloquently on the eve of the British Presidency at the European Parliament.
The review we propose to hold of all Community expenditure in 2008 and 2009 offers us a chance to assess the global and domestic challenges which the Union faces, where and how Community action and spending can best add value to national and regional efforts, and how the resources to sustain that spending can be most fairly found. It is an important opportunity for us all, for this Parliament, for the Council and the Commission and our European citizens, to consider the best way forward.
Amidst all the debate in the press and the media, let us keep our eyes on the very considerable prize before us: a budget that enshrines a fundamental shift of spending towards the new Member States, EUR 260 billion in receipts for the new Member States over the next seven years, EUR 2 500 for every man, woman and child.
The economic dynamism of those new Member States is already truly an inspiration for us all. The new flexibilities we have proposed for the structural and cohesion funds should ensure that more of the allocations to new Member States can be spent and that each euro absorbed by Member States, their regions and their cities can have more impact. This will deliver greater improvements in the infrastructure and skills which this Union collectively will need if it is to rise to the global economic challenge and if it is to deliver the social justice which all of our people rightly demand.
Future financing lies at the heart of this week’s European Council, but it is not the only issue, so let me briefly touch on other points to be discussed by our Heads of Government this week. First, there is the follow-up to the October informal Heads of Government meeting at Hampton Court. At the summit we agreed to make more concrete progress in a series of key areas: boosting research and development with the creation of a European research council; improving our universities and their links with business; creating a more competitive energy market; examining how migration can boost our economy; how we can use more extensive and better quality child care to give people a fairer balance between work and family life; how we can re-skill workers to meet the global challenge, and how we can strengthen Europe’s place in the world and our collective security."@en1
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