Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-12-16-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20091216.3.3-025"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of the financial crisis, it certainly cannot be argued that the Swedish Presidency has behaved logically and adopted a clear-sighted and clear-cut stance.
How can the European Union lawmakers bring themselves to reproach a small country that has always been democratic, ever since the Middle Ages? Should it really be us, the slaves of a bureaucracy elected by nobody, teaching the Swiss people about democracy? Should we be the ones to deny them the right to hold a referendum on an important question, on which everyone is entitled to their own opinion?
On the contrary, the European Union should learn from Swiss democracy how to tackle the most sensitive problems, by giving a voice to the people, the people, the people, not the bureaucracies, the lobbies and the banks of this European superpower, which always makes decisions about citizens’ lives without consulting them!
Why did you lack the courage to give the names and surnames of those responsible for the financial crisis, clearly stating measures to clip the wings of speculation, or spell out to European citizens that our banks and our financial institutions are still peddling many of the financial products subject to speculation, and polluting our market?
Why did you not offer a clear gesture of support to the real economy, which is represented above all by the archipelago of small and medium-sized enterprises, by the world of production, by the healthy world of our European economy, to which, I repeat, it is and always will be necessary to offer signs of encouragement and of true support?
Perhaps the most significant challenge that the Swedish Presidency had to face concerned freedom, security and justice, and that also applies to implementation of the Stockholm Programme. What conclusion can be drawn from this? I believe that this Presidency has not taken sufficient action against illegal immigration, and that the action it has taken has been extremely ineffective. The Presidency has not been active in opposing illegal immigration even with regard to integration projects and dealing with the problem of refugees.
It appears that Europe has spoken out feebly, not merely in general about foreign policy – and I am fully in agreement with those who have objected to this – but also on this specific topic. Europe has apparently lacked authority on such a key subject as immigration, however you look at it; whether from the viewpoint of people like me who are very concerned about illegal immigration, or from the perspective of those who are more concerned with implementing integration policies.
We have high hopes that the new Spanish Presidency will implement the ideas that have already been disclosed in some influential statements, which argue that Europe must not think of immigration as a problem exclusive to countries bordering the Mediterranean.
This is evidently a problem that concerns all of Europe, but there is one point on which the government of my country expressed a clear request, which was nonetheless disregarded. It suggested adopting a serious Europe-wide strategy to fight the legacy of organised crime; a strategy that has yielded exceptional results in Italy. This legacy is present throughout Europe: the Mafia, the organised Mafias have invaded all of Europe, infiltrating the real economy and particularly the financial economy.
We are still awaiting a clear signal that we will see the introduction of a European legal system against this type of organised crime, which is so very powerful in several countries – if not in all the countries of the European Union. Since this type of crime can operate too freely, it has taken advantage of our freedoms, moving as it pleases between financial marketplaces, tax havens and markets dealing in property and other assets. It is precisely on this point that we could have done with a much greater degree of clarity, a more clear-cut line of action by the Swedish Presidency. We accuse the Swedish Presidency openly.
And then we come to the statements of certain representatives of this Presidency on another important and symbolic question, that of the Swiss referendum on minarets. The Swedish Foreign Ministry defined a ‘no’ to the building of minarets as the ‘expression of a prejudice’. It went even further, claiming that Berne’s very decision to hold a referendum on a matter like this was questionable. So here we have a question that lies outside the scope of the referendum, and that is the question of whether or not to hold a referendum."@en1
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