Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-316"
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"en.20060404.24.2-316"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of citizenship is central to the revival of the European Union’s political project.
There are no shortcuts to revitalising Europe’s role on a global scale. What it needs is for a real constituent process to be created, avoiding attempts to revive a constitutional treaty that has been killed off and erased by the will of the people. We need to build an intercultural society emphasising Europe’s mixed-blood identity and, above all, we must encourage the integration of immigrants and the extension of citizenship rights.
That is why we also think that the European citizenship concept must be tied closely to residence, with the explicit aim of encouraging inclusion. In that respect, we believe that the ‘Citizens for Europe’ programme can be a useful and valid means of promoting European citizenship rights, which should be increasingly dissociated from national criteria.
The programme’s actions are worthy of support, and I refer in particular to town twinning projects and active European remembrance. I believe we need to be clear on the latter point, however. The 20th century was one of wars and authoritarian regimes, and there were countless victims of the deportations and mass killings carried out by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes. Twentieth-century European history cannot be commemorated, however, without remembering the victims of its Fascist regimes: in Italy, Fascists deprived men and women of their freedom for two decades, and there are many connections between the Italian regime and the Nazis.
Spain, Portugal and Greece only recently won back democracy and freedom. Antifascism is a European value and cannot be reduced to a national event, and we therefore believe that it is now worth remembering the victims of Fascism to prevent similar events from happening again. There are still neo-fascist groups in Europe today, who feed on xenophobia, homophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism.
Excluding the victims of such authoritarian regimes from the programme would be both tragic and a threat to the promotion of citizenship and a common European identity. We therefore hope that Amendments 62 and 63 will be adopted."@en1
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