Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-03-Speech-2-269"
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"en.20090203.20.2-269"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague Claudio Fava will speak on behalf of our group on questions relating to the CIA flights and that part of the discussion. I will focus on the issues relating to the closure of the Guantánamo camp and I will begin by responding to Hartmut Nassauer.
It is true that the security requirements of the people in the European Union represent a standard against which we must measure our actions. However, I would like to begin with the question: What causes more damage to our security? Is it the fear of accepting Guantánamo inmates here because they are considered to pose a security risk after their release? Or, more likely, is it the fact that the existence of this camp, which runs contrary to international law and infringes human rights, is the basic reason behind a wave of overwhelming anger felt by millions of people throughout the world? This is because the so-called Western world, which admittedly was provoked in an unprecedented way by the events of 11 September, was, to a certain extent, unable to influence what happened and therefore had to accept the fact that a president of the United States of America disregarded fundamental human rights because he considered this to be an appropriate response to this provocation.
I believe that this has made a more significant contribution to increasing insecurity in the world than if we were to state now, when another president wants to return his country to its former greatness, by making the United States of America a symbol for the preservation of fundamental rights throughout the world, if we Europeans were to say now, we want nothing to do with this, you must work out for yourself what to do about it.
We would give out the message that a confederation of states such as the European Union, which believes itself to be, and indeed is, a community ruled by law, wants to evade its responsibilities by using this argument at the moment when an illegal situation is being brought to an end. We cannot expect our citizens to accept that this is a security risk. This is the wrong message. It is disastrous, because our behaviour is worse than those people who, like Barack Obama, go there and say that despite all the risks that they themselves are taking, despite the opposition among the military, despite the opposition in the USA, because the people there are also saying ‘leave them in Guantánamo, do not bring them here, here they represent a bigger risk’, who say that despite all this opposition, there is a symbolic power which results from the fact that a new president is returning to a respect for human and fundamental rights, including the rights of those who themselves have not shown any regard for human and fundamental rights. A failure to help him in this situation would be wrong and would run contrary at least to my group’s understanding of the task of the European Union, which is to ensure that the community ruled by law that we have created internally is exported as an aspect of international politics.
We can only do that when we contribute in a credible way within our own boundaries to ensuring that the fundamental rights of every individual have priority. Guantánamo is a place of shame. It is a place of torture. For this reason, it is also a symbol of the fact that the Western confederation of states cannot claim to practise what it preaches, which is that, most importantly of all, human dignity is inviolable. This is the first article in our Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Charter does not state that this inviolability can be reduced. Our sense of superiority over the terrorist philosophy has something to do with the fact that we say that we will even grant those people their fundamental rights who want to withhold those rights from others by means of their actions.
For this reason, I believe we can make a greater contribution to the security of the world by closing Guantánamo, by supporting Barack Obama and by playing an active role if the US Administration asks us to do so and if we can work with the government to put in place a process for accepting these people, than if we were to preach a false concept of security which, Mr Nassauer, could only be implemented if the police and the secret service were to do their job. It is not the case that when people come out of Guantánamo, they can move around here freely and unobserved. The security aspect is important, but fundamental rights must, in this instance, be given a higher priority."@en1
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