Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-12-Speech-1-126"
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"en.20071112.19.1-126"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that even on this occasion, I must use the customary sincerity and frankness in addressing this Parliament, towards which I harbour the utmost respect, although this does not preclude me from replying to statements and considerations which I do not share.
What is this if it does not make freedom of movement more effective? If this happens, it will be partly down to my efforts. I have been working on this for the past two and a half years and have never been afraid to say that the right of free movement is one of the pillars of the European Union. I cannot believe that anyone can criticise me for being someone who does not want this right to be recognised.
A final word on the subject of Romania: I have listened to the Romanian MPs. They more than anyone else know what I personally have done to help Romania join the EU, with reports, with advice, with the visits I have made. Well, I do not think that anyone in Parliament can suspect even for a moment that I do not have, for Romania and for the Romanian people – not Romanian criminals, who I regard in the same way as Italian criminals – the utmost respect and deepest friendship, or I would not have done everything I have done over the last two years. I do not think that extrapolating a single sentence from an interview can change these facts.
I did not just start taking action and speaking out on this issue a few days ago. Many of you have recalled one or two lines from an interview I gave – one of many – on 2 November. I started taking a real interest in this question months and months ago. This was at the request of Italian mayors, who as we know belong to different political parties, most of them in the centre-left.
At the conference of Italian mayors on 19 May, an important meeting which took place months ago – and considering how often I am quoted, I too keep a record – Italian mayors raised the issue of security in their cities with the Italian Minister of the Interior, blaming it on Europe. At the end of that meeting, Mr Amato said that it was a grave mistake to think that the issue of security was exclusively the problem of the wealthy who had something to protect, and that it was a phenomenon which, unless addressed, would turn neighbours into enemies. This led to the appeal to the European Commission issued that same day.
On 23 June, at the General Assembly of the ANCI – which as Italian MEPs will know, is the Italian local authority association, presided over by the Mayor of Florence – the Roma reception plan was unveiled following a meeting which had taken place a few days before between local authority representatives and myself. At that meeting, which took place in Bari, the reception plan for the Roma people was unveiled and a request issued for European funding – which until then had not been requested by Italy – to cover the costs of the plan. Italian mayors agreed that the integration system should be based on values of reciprocity, arguing that we had a duty to welcome and integrate immigrants provided that they accepted the rules of our country.
This was the position I adopted for months and months, ever since the start of the summer in fact, until an event promoted by the Mayors of Bologna and Florence led to a national campaign against people who clean car windscreens. The Mayor of Florence – who clearly you know, he is not someone who can be suspected of having racist sympathies – even proposed criminalising homeless people who clean car windscreens.
I met with the mayors again, and then on 25 October, a few weeks ago, a memo from an Italian agency, after yet another meeting, said that ‘the mayors do not agree, they want new laws immediately and are claiming that people do not understand the divisions that are forming within the majority. These statements included an appeal from Italian mayors and from the Italian Minister of the Interior to me, because at that time no one thought that Europe had any tools like those subsequently adopted with the decree-law to tackle situations where there was a clear violation of Directive 2004/38/EC.
This is why I started taking an interest in this subject, and to all those who took the floor to criticise me, I say this: I do not think that you will find a single time when I did not make a positive and honest contribution and cooperate with Mr Amato, who is responsible for this matter in Italy. I challenge you to prove otherwise, that I refused to collaborate when asked to do so by Mr Amato and that I did not respond to requests that the Italian government legitimately made to Europe, as happened a few days ago.
A few weeks after these events, the first figures were released – I remember it well because, as a member of the European Commission, I received protests from Bucharest – by the Mayor of Rome, claiming that Romanians were responsible for 75% of crimes committed in Italy, when in actual fact it was 75% of crimes committed by foreigners, and so a much lower percentage. Many of you will remember that people took to the streets in Bucharest to protest against these statements, yet despite this, I was still holding talks with the Mayor of Rome, offering him the resources of the European Social Fund. He sent me a letter, which is clearly on the record, asking for help and support from Europe in the form of integration measures. I considered that this was my duty and I did this.
To conclude, I do not think that anyone in Parliament can be in any doubt over the fact that, apart from what some of you have decided to raise here today, which is just one aspect of a particular interview, I trust that none of you can overlook what I have achieved over the years. I have worked and I still am working to ensure that the Schengen area is extended before Christmas to include the nine new Member States."@en1
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