Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-19-Speech-2-161"
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"en.20080219.28.2-161"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this opportunity to get to know the Prime Minister is very welcome, especially as he is surrounded by a bevy of women – some of whom, like Cecilia, we have known for ages, and others, like Margot, we have had here for quite some time. The role of women in his government and in his country is something that I should therefore like to stress, especially as it is not just a question of gender, but also of quality, and it is partly in recognition of this that we are therefore pleased to welcome him here today.
Mr President, the European Union’s future mission is to control climate change in all its aspects: environmental, economic and social. We must at all costs manage to reverse the trend towards global warming, and use this challenge to bring about a shift towards a sustainable economy as well as sustainable work and competitiveness.
Just as many years ago the mission of the European Community was to prevent war and then to bring about the unification of Europe through the fall of the Wall, we must be able to take on a genuine leading role in future as regards the main environmental challenges. It is not because we are single-issue people or because we are Greens that we think in this way, but because we see the reality as it is with no illusions, and not through the lens of ideology.
We are convinced that the economic system, democratic stability, the ability to achieve the Millennium Goals and to control migratory problems are all connected with the management of scarce resources and with climate change. Europe undoubtedly has a leading role to play here.
For that reason, Mr President, his comment that what should be done and paid for at European level and what should be done and paid for at national level need to be discussed yet again seems to us to be entirely banal, and we hope that it can be avoided.
The European Union currently has a budget of 1%, with the result that none, or at least a good half, of the things that he has said could be achieved unless the European Union has a decent budget available. I therefore hope that in the mid-term review in which his Presidency will, I believe, play an important part, bearing in mind that between this year and next year we must decide on the future of the financial perspective as well, his country will play less of a blocking role than it has played in the past.
Lastly, Mr President, on the important energy package, we expect that virtuous Sweden will play a positive role and stop trying to reduce its commitments, thereby setting a bad example for the other Member States as well.
Finally, on the issue of free trade. While we are not protectionist, it would be genuinely short-sighted and a little ideological to think that free trade is the answer to everything when, without environmental and social rules, we know that to be absolutely impossible.
On the question of Turkey we are fully in agreement. The elimination of Papadopoulos in Cyprus is very good news in our view. Mr President, why not re-open the question of the seat of the European Parliament?"@en1
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