Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-317"
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"en.20061213.33.3-317"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European politics are moving into a decisive phase in the second half of this Parliament’s lifetime, which will be dominated by the finding of solutions to a number of questions and problems that are fundamental in terms of Europe’s future, and so I want to start by saying, on behalf of my group, that we are ready, during this period, to join with the other institutions – the Council and, in particular, the Commission – in a constructive dialogue aimed at finding a way out of the
in which the EU finds itself.
In the first half of our term, we in this House had several justified criticisms to make, some of them directed at the Commission, but we are willing to work closely with it on such things as the preparation and, above all, the evaluation of the forthcoming summit, on the basis that the European internal market will either acquire a social dimension or people will turn their backs on it. At the Congress of the Party of European Socialists, we laid down a number of guidelines and set out certain demands that we are going to make at this summit, and my colleague Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who was on that occasion re-elected as our president, will shortly be saying something on behalf of our group about Europe’s social dimension. We are faced, then, with the choice between social security or popular rejection, but what would happen if the latter were to come to pass, and if the present stagnation of the project of European integration were to threaten to be the ruin of it? In that case, Mr Barroso, the tasks that you have described could not be performed. The cards are on the table. What we have to do is easily described. Climate change is no subject for light-hearted talk; if the Chinese and the Indians – all 2.3 billion of them – claim the right to use as much energy as we Europeans and the Americans do, then the rate at which their economies are expanding will be the death of this planet. Here in Europe, we can reduce our CO2 emissions as much as we like, but the amount of it they pump out will be many times in excess of it. We need to act, and Europe has to take a leading role in this.
The cards are on the table. Russia is not a flawless democracy, and its internal policies need to be discussed, but it is a state that we need if all the international conflicts that prey on our minds; no conflict with Iran or in the Middle East is capable of being resolved without Russia, which is itself – let this be noted, by the way – under threat from North Korea’s nuclear weapons, so let me say that I am grateful to the Finnish Presidency of the Council for having made such a great effort to prepare the partnership and cooperation agreement and to get negotiations started. I hope that the Polish Government, too, will eventually come to see that we need this cooperation and partnership agreement.
The international conflicts that I have described – the Middle East conflict in particular – are a real and acute danger, and making peace will take much astute footwork. One of the steps we need to take if we are to build a bridge to the destabilised regions bordering on Europe, is to give Turkey a prospect of accession. That which has just been adopted is a resolution in the true sense of the word. Above all else, it is a message to the Turkish Government to the effect that we want to carry on negotiating with it, and I appeal to it not to let up in its efforts at reform, not to give in to the temptation to play a domestic political card in the shape of a brief anti-European turn in the hope of a few more votes, only then to say that that was not how it was meant. That is not on, any more than it is acceptable that we, for our part, should send out a different signal from one day to another. That is why Mr Poettering and Chancellor Merkel, when she takes over the Presidency of the Council, will have to decide what they want, whether or not they want Turkey to have the prospect of accession; in other words, desperately seeking this or that argument with which to be able to say that it will not happen – what one might call the Cyprus excuse – will not work, and so we have a good decision from the Commission and an inappropriate response from Ankara. I hope that Mr Erdogan will think again, but, generally speaking, this prospect of accession is indispensable in terms of Europe’s security.
I might add that I say that even though I am well aware that most people take a sceptical view of this, but there are times when politicians must summon up the courage to say that, even though they know about public scepticism and are aware that their voters take a different view, the work of persuading them must be done, that they must put forward arguments without giving in to the opportunism of everyday politics that just might win them the next election. It has to be said, though, that demolishing the bridge to the Islamic world that the Turks’ arrival in Europe will enable us to build will be far more dangerous than the loss of one election. The cards for this summit are on the table. The problems can be addressed, and I have tried to describe how we in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament can help to do that."@en1
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