Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-04-Speech-3-301"
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"en.20090204.17.3-301"2
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"Mr President, it has been stated already that citizens of the Union travel widely. Well, there are approximately 180 million trips made outside of the European Union every year, and – in theory – they are protected under Article 20, as the Commissioner and indeed the Council Presidency have already provided for in this debate.
Under Article 20, there is a requirement for Member States only to provide consular assistance to unrepresented EU nationals on the same terms as their nationals. This difference in approach between Member States is recognised within the action plan of 2007 and 2009.
Of course, there needs to be a criterion as to when and how other consular services should become involved, and these break down basically into three. I am not going to go through them, but the first two are perfectly sensible. The third puts forward a requirement for that citizen to provide proof of his or her nationality, either by means of passport, identity card or other document, for the diplomatic or consular representation to be provided.
There is a real problem here, because for any European citizen who is fleeing a situation, it is perfectly feasible that they may not actually be in possession of such documentation.
Assistance is provided in the event of death, serious accident, serious injury, arrest, detention, assistance to be provided to victims of violent crime, and relief and repatriation of distressed citizens of the Union. It is extensive but not exhaustive. More work needs to be done there.
To make all this happen, we have heard about the concept of a Lead State, which will endeavour to ensure that all EU citizens are assisted and that it will coordinate between Member States.
That is all very good in theory, but in practice I certainly did not see this happen in Mumbai. There was no real sharing of information and intelligence, not the sort of cooperation I expected to see. Instead I saw only competition between Member States, and further centralisation or consolidation of consular services will risk taking away the flexibility missions require on the ground in rapidly changing circumstances."@en1
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"Sajjad Karim (PPE-DE )."1
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