Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-04-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20080604.15.3-025"2
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"Mr President, I should like to comment and express the views of Parliament on foreign policy during this debate, which is more than just a routine annual debate on foreign policy and the state of play of foreign policy in the Union: the participation of Mr Solana with us is a testimony that it is a special debate. Thank you for coming, Mr Solana.
On priorities, we believe that we need a focused approach and a limited number of priorities. We underline the need for value-driven foreign policy, not because we are excessively idealistic or naive, but because a world around us which shares our own strong universal values will best serve our interests of security and prosperity.
Parliament considers the foreign policy of the Union as a contribution to strengthened European identity and also as value added for EU citizens and as part of the European Commission’s trajectory of a Europe of results.
We consider foreign policy as a key EU policy to be equipped with a proper institutional set-up, which the Lisbon Treaty brings about, proper instruments, and adequate financing out of the EU budget. We need a set of instruments at our disposal, and that is something which lies ahead of us.
First, we are at a very important juncture, if not a turning point, in terms of foreign policy because of the Lisbon Treaty innovations. We have to look back in order to evaluate as usual, but we also have to take a forward-looking approach. We have high and growing citizen support for foreign policy, for one which is genuine and robust. Member States’ perceptions increasingly change, seeing that speaking with one voice and acting in common is the only way to have an effective Union foreign policy.
Entering this new chapter of EU foreign policy, we are moving towards a qualitative change. The new foreign policy should draw its legitimacy not only from its intergovernmental source, but also from European Parliament scrutiny, hence, as we will see, the growing importance and role of the European Parliament in shaping this policy, as we called for in our report. We need an integrated and holistic approach to foreign policy, with cohesion, convergence and complementarity of all the institutions involved, including the Member States.
The European Union should continue its role as peace-maker and mediator, a soft power helping to stabilise, reconstruct and reform, a supplier of assistance and humanitarian aid, as a normative power, value-projecting and promoting democracy, freedom and human rights, but at the same time we should complement the soft dimension with a harder one by developing the ESDP dimension and our military capabilities to be prepared for power projection also.
We should complement our reactive policy to short- and medium-term challenges with a more long-term strategic approach and definition of European interests in the long term, by addressing the true causes and not only the effects of some changes around us like Darfur, which is both a climate and a conflict situation.
We should continue being active on various geographical priorities, but also face new challenges and horizontal issues like climate security, energy security, space security, cyber-security, migration flows and many others.
While aspiring to be a global power and a global actor, we should change the balance between being a payer, as we are and we want to be, and being a key player in the world arena. The new Treaty offers a huge potential for a coherent and effective foreign policy, but we all know that implementation will be crucial. We need collective will and cooperation, not only in the institutional triangle but also with Member States, and we have to avoid rivalries.
We tried to table a constructive approach in this report. We are concerned by some failures of foreign policy, but we look more to the future. We recognise positive evolution, progress and successes. We recommend challenging the failures but building on achievements, and identifying room for further progress.
The European Parliament’s ambition is not only to scrutinise the foreign policy, to make recommendations on which to base solutions and choices for the executive branch, but also to invest in its own foreign policy-making, which I call ‘parliamentary diplomacy’, as it is run within our competence at parliamentary level."@en1
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