Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-06-20-Speech-2-019"
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"en.20060620.6.2-019"2
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"Mr President, there is at least one decision with which the last Council has obviously made history in a small way, and that is the decision to hold codecision procedure meetings in public in future. I think this is a good decision; it is one that we support and it should actually increase transparency among the institutions.
It is an important step and it should be supported by many people, precisely in this difficult period in which the EU finds itself. However, I do ask myself why the Heads of State or Government of the EU Member States themselves try to frustrate this intention, by making announcements to the citizens of the EU that are precisely the opposite of thoughtfulness, insight or correctives to previous policies. The conclusions of the Presidency, under the headings ‘Europe listens’, ‘Europe at work’ and ‘Looking to the future’, are as follows.
I know I am exaggerating here, but that is indeed my intention: firstly, Europe means those who govern the European Union, not the citizens of the EU and not all the people who live in the EU; secondly, those who govern continue the same policies and implement existing policies under the motto ‘faster, further, better’; and thirdly, looking to the future is understood as conforming with the challenges of globalisation and demographic change and successfully implementing the Lisbon Strategy.
These conclusions are hardly surprising, but they are not very helpful as a step-by-step solution to the backlog of problems in the European Union. On the contrary, precisely these intentions will make the social, environmental and global problems even worse. I would very much like to remind you of the European Services Directive: in our view, it is a sell-out and it does not achieve what you claimed a short while ago. Especially alarming is the fact that, under the subheading ‘Promoting freedom, security and justice’, most of the measures aim at more surveillance, more repression, more protective bulwarks or rather Fortress Europe, and the implementation of a migration policy whose central priority is to treat people like economic goods.
The Council’s response to the tragedies involving refugees in the Mediterranean is to set up so-called ‘rapid border intervention teams’, a term that seems to imply - particularly in English - sending in commando troops against refugees. Just as alarming is the fact that, under the further subheading ‘Promoting the European way of life in a globalised world’, an out-of-date energy policy is bound up with the common foreign and security policy and the European security and defence policy in such a way that others in the world could feel threatened by this.
Now this certainly proves very well that those in power do not consider sustainable development to be the democratic resolution of social, environmental and global problems. The meeting of the European Council has, however, in my view made it just as clear that the period of reflection has not in any way been used to identify the reasons why the Constitution was rejected in the referendums in France and in the Netherlands, let alone to react to this in some way. I think that a different type of politics and a different basic substance must emerge clearly
from the Constitution. I find this lack of action arrogant and it will not be accepted by many citizens. Of course the year has been used to continue cheerfully with the development of the internal market for armaments and to progress in matters of surveillance, repression and protective barriers.
The way in which worthy preparations are now made for the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome should make us think. Rather than turning it into just another festival, we should be using this special occasion to give real thought to the future, together with our fellow citizens."@en1
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