Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-10-Speech-3-022"
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"en.20100310.6.3-022"2
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"Mr President, if I might just give some comments directly on the issues and questions that have been raised.
So, what we do on justice and home affairs across the world, what do parliamentarians wish to do with other parliaments? We must use the Service as we build it to be able to be your servant in helping you address those issues on the ground. I think on those issues, we are in exactly the same place.
Mr Tannock: assertive leadership that is up to the challenge. Well, I hope that you will start to see what you would recognise as assertive leadership. It is very important, as you say, that we address some of these critical issues: the Balkans and the transatlantic relationship are absolutely core and central to what we do. It is why we spend a lot of time in discussion with the United States and why I personally spend a lot of time in discussion and dialogue with them and, of course, Ukraine.
I hope that you were pleased with my decision to go to the inauguration and then to invite President Yanukovich to come to Brussels where he spent one of his first days. He was inaugurated on Thursday. He was in Brussels on Monday in order to begin to further and deepen that relationship for the future.
Mr Meyer, you talked about the issues of foreign policy and disarmament and the issues of whether it is appropriate to think in military terms. Let me just give you two very quick examples, one of which I have already described which was at Atalanta and the importance of having a comprehensive approach to what we do.
We have, off the coast of Somalia, ships which have been extremely successful this weekend, by the way, with the French navy in capturing pirates who were determined to create havoc in that part of the sea. Linked to that is making sure that they are prosecuted and treated properly by reference to our own judicial standards in the countries of that region.
Linked to that is the development programme that the Commission is working on to try and support the economy in Somalia so that it improves. Linked to that is the work that we are about to start on training people to be able to provide security in the region. In other words, it is a joined-up approach and it is a comprehensive approach. That means you use the tools that you need to be able to address the problems that people face.
Another example: having been in Haiti last week, I must pay tribute to the Italians that I saw working there. People fresh from the tragedy of Aquila, but here we had the navy, we had the fire fighters, we had NGOs, we had civilians, we had doctors, we had psychiatrists, we had dentists, we had nurses, all working under the umbrella of the commander, actually, of the ship who had a hospital ship full of people who were being treated from the direct consequences of the earthquake. Young people with amputations; children who had terrible burns who were being treated; teams out there to support them.
What I am trying to say is that I think you have to think about the comprehensive strategy and approach that we can offer that involves using the means that we have and using them to greatest effect.
Mr Provera, on development cooperation immigration, you make an important point, which is that, if people feel they have no other choices, then they will take risks, often with their lives, to leave the country where they live and were born and want to live. Most people want to be able to live in the country in which they have grown up.
So the important thing about development, in my view, has always been to be able to support the economic livelihoods of people in order to enable them to be able to stay and live where they wish to live in order to be able to get the educational support, the health support and so on.
To Mr Kasoulides, on the Non-proliferation Treaty review, it is vital that it succeeds above anything else. We believe we have to take practical steps: a comprehensive test ban treaty should come into force; the fissile material cut-off; support for peaceful uses of nuclear energy to find safe ways of making sure that we avoid proliferation – for example, the contributions we make to the nuclear fuel bank – and support for a very strong and effective IAEA. We must work of course especially, as we have said, in areas like the Middle East, which means that we have to continue to put pressure on Iran and address the issues that are raised there.
That is going to be a very big part of what we are doing on the ground, and that helps particularly in states where instability, because of climate change, could be very difficult.
Finally, Mr Mölzer, do not be so pessimistic, is what I want to say to you. It is not about operating above the heads of Member States. It is about building something uniquely European – not the same as what happens in Member States, whether it is Germany, Italy, France, the UK or wherever. It is not the same. We are building something different that is about long-term security and stability, economic growth on the ground that we can contribute to that is in our interest but that actually is also about the values that we hold dear.
And, as for my languages
So I can do the languages, and I will get better and better. I look forward to getting to the point where I can have a real conversation with you in much better German than I can do today.
Mr Severin, on the External Action Service and the priorities that you gave, well, we are in the same place – exactly so. It is very important to me that the Service has political and budgetary accountability, exactly as you have said, and it must be effected in this double-hatted way. It is going to be essential too, as you have indicated, that we draw in and discuss these issues with other key partners. I think you mentioned, for example, Russia and Turkey. Well, Russia I have already visited. I was spending part of the weekend with the Turkish Foreign Minister: a real opportunity to talk in much greater depth about that relationship for the future. So I would agree wholeheartedly with the priorities that you set out and thank you for those.
Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, thank you for your kind words. I think it was not so much that the EU disappeared from the world stage. It is that the inevitability of that hiatus, of having a Commission that was effective, has now been resolved. And, for my own part, it has been extremely important because, until the Commission came into force, I did not even have a cabinet, never mind an External Action Service. And we are now in a position where we can begin to put the resources together.
I think it is also absolutely right that you raise the importance of being visible on the ground. My difficulty, as you know, is that I have not yet learned how to time travel. But I think it is absolutely essential that, as we look ahead, we look at the priorities that have been set out with which I think this House will largely agree and make sure that my actions are addressed to those priorities, one of which is setting up the Service, which does not yet exist. It does not have a staffing structure. It is not there yet. But when it does have that, we will be able to demonstrate the force of Europe in the best sense of that word across the world.
Mrs Brantner, again your common theme to me of trying to get as much detail as possible: I think it is very important. Some of the issues that you have raised are very critical. We do not want duplication within the different institutions in terms of what we do. We want the geographical desk approach to what we do, and I agree with you about peace-building: that it is a very important part of where the EU should act.
And in a sense, it comes into building the different elements of what we do well – the work we do on state-building, on justice, on the rule of law, the work we do on development programmes, the work we do on tackling the issues of climate change, the work that we do on providing support to governments and to people – all of that is engineered to make us more secure, stable and prosperous but actually, by doing so, we are creating a more secure, stable and prosperous world.
Those objectives are extremely important.
I agree with you completely about women. We need to get more women, for example, into our policing missions, where there are very few that I have seen so far. We need to make sure that women are firmly integrated into the service at all levels. That is a challenge we need to make sure that we address. But, most importantly, what I would say to you is that the External Action Service is at the service of the whole of the European Union."@en1
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"oui, je peux parler français, mais je ne suis pas très bien en français. Ich habe auch zwei Jahre in der Schule Deutsch gelernt, aber ich habe es jetzt vergessen."1
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