Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-05-Speech-3-168"
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"en.20060705.17.3-168"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start with the warmest congratulations to our rapporteur Mr Fava on his excellent interim report, and the reason why I call it that is that we are less than halfway through our work.
Let me emphasise and clarify at this point that nobody in our group is against the idea that we should join together in fighting international terrorism. Quite the contrary: but we do take the view that we can no longer do this using the same weapons as the terrorists, but only by lawful means and in accordance with the ethical and moral principles on which our community of values, the European Union, is founded, on which we insist wherever we go in the world and in which we can also take pride.
It is surely not acceptable that people should be abducted from EU territory or from states that are desirous of joining our Community, flown halfway round the globe and tortured in prisons in such places as Kabul, which has been shown to be what happened to Khaled El-Masri, himself a German citizen. The fact is that this is where the end does not justify the means, and that is what must come between us and the approach adopted by the Bush administration and the CIA. When we express criticism of such goings-on, that has nothing – nothing whatever – to do with anti-Americanism; on the contrary, it is our duty to do so.
We also find ourselves facing the question that the governments in the EU must answer, namely that as to precisely what a secret service – which is what the CIA is, albeit one from a friendly state – is permitted to do on our soil, and in what manner it may act. After all, this is not something to which the country of origin principle can apply. The Member States of the EU, and also the countries that seek to become such must also make it clear that action may be taken against a person suspected of terrorism only by way of proceedings in accordance with the rule of law. How else, then, do the EU Member States think they can cooperate with such institutions as the European Parliament and the Council of Europe?
This is a question that the government of FYROM in Skopje has to face up to as well, for we really do not take kindly to being lied to. I am glad, though, that the German foreign minister Mr Steinmeier has not hesitated to confirm that he will be coming to meet our committee; I have to say that we also expect other prominent figures to do likewise.
It is not our function to carry out investigations with the exact attention to detail of a state prosecutor and eventually produce a statement of facts and a charge sheet; what we must do is to make it clear to the citizens of the European Union, once our work is done, what, to our knowledge, has taken place and what political conclusions should be drawn from it in order that we may continue to hold fast to our values and principles, and to demonstrate the European Union’s readiness to defend and guarantee freedom, security and democracy.
It appears, though, that there are some in the House who have not yet even begun to grasp what that might mean."@en1
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