Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-17-Speech-3-306"
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"en.20081217.22.3-306"2
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"Madam President, Mrs Yade, Mr Barrot, ladies and gentlemen, today we are having the last debate of this parliamentary term on the progress made in relation to the European area of freedom, security and justice. I forwarded the content of the oral question on this issue to the Commission and the Presidency of the Council, and so I am not going to spend the few minutes I have paraphrasing it. Madam President, at this time when the city of Strasbourg invites us to celebrate Christmas in the festive spirit, I should like to take this opportunity to give out some presents.
Now, Madam President, having given out the presents and taken stock, I would like to turn to the challenge that we are going to have to face together and the new guidelines that should inspire the Stockholm programme, which I sincerely hope can be implemented on the basis of the Treaty of Lisbon, should it finally be ratified.
As I do not have time, I will only draw one conclusion. We must not be guided by our fears or the fears of our citizens. We must be guided, first of all, by our values, which must be supported by objective assessments of the risks we have to face. It is in that spirit, I hope, that we will draft the Stockholm programme and that we will implement it together.
I am pleased to give the first present to the French Presidency of the Council, not for the permanence of its presence or for its punctuality but, in general terms, for the quality of the preparation that the Presidency put into its contacts with Parliament, for the expertise it has shown and, in particular, for the eminent colleagues in the form of its Ministers who took part in the delicate negotiations that were held with the European Parliament. I would like to give very special thanks to Mr Jouyet, whose warmth, professionalism and skill have been unanimously appreciated by this House.
I would like to give my second present to Mr Barrot. He is a Vice-President of the Commission who was perfectly comfortable in his previous role and who, at the request of his President, and to spare the Commission the serious political problems that would have been caused by the replacement of Mr Frattini, agreed to take on, without any preparation, one of the most difficult and sensitive of all Commission portfolios. Commissioner, Jacques, in less than a year, you have managed not only to master a particularly complex issue, but also to make your mark, as shown by the proposals just presented to us regarding the new asylum policy guidelines.
My third present is for my fellow Members, most of whom are consummate professionals who are passionate about their dossiers, some of whom are real workaholics, and one or two, it must be said, are real characters whom I look upon, as others do, with equal respect and affection.
My last present is for our colleagues, both from the secretariat – Emilio De Capitani is here, but he is not listening – our colleagues in the political groups, and the assistants of every one of us, whose enthusiasm, devotion and ability are a vital part of the success of our work.
Having given out the presents, I would like to take stock. Nobody can argue, Madam President, that in less than ten years, the European area of freedom, security and justice has undergone considerable growth. From a totally embryonic stage in 1999 – I would remind you that the ambition of the Tampere programme was firstly to lay the foundations of cooperation between the Member States and to promote mutual recognition of judicial decisions – the JLS sector underwent further growth during the Hague programme, which strengthened the Community platform.
It is on this dual basis and under the pressure of dramatic external events – I am not going to talk about the attacks that have troubled us so much and which have caused so many deaths and tragedies – that a number of policies have made spectacular progress: the fight against terrorism and serious crime, the fight against illegal immigration, the fight against racism and xenophobia, and the fight against drugs and drug addiction.
What is more, it is not a criticism of us all – the Council, the Commission, Parliament – to acknowledge that during these last ten years, our approach has been primarily, and I do not say exclusively, guided by a knee-jerk response, triggered both by the dramatic events that I have just mentioned and by the legitimate security expectations of our citizens.
Recently, however, another approach has gradually emerged, which takes a less defensive path and which is driven by the desire for more positive, more voluntarist action towards the area that we want to create together. It was by that approach that the Treaty of Lisbon, as you are aware, made the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding. It was by that approach that it was decided to transform the Vienna Observatory into the Agency for Fundamental Rights. It was by that approach that the Pact on Immigration and Asylum, without overlooking defence and security requirements, opened the way to a more open policy, based on the active management of migratory flows and advances in partnership."@en1
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