Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-07-Speech-2-388"
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"en.20100907.28.2-388"2
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"Mr President, a lot has been said and there have been a lot of polemics. I shall not answer in the same way, because we have to calm down and look at what we are here for – namely to solve the problems and not to create more problems. One concrete question which was asked was: Who was at the Córdoba Summit with the representatives of the Roma? The answer is László Andor and myself, two Spanish Ministers, a French State Secretary and a Finnish Minister. That was all, from the 27 governments.
We have had the communication and the action plan. We have the Roma platforms. We have all the measures in our hands. Why are those measures not applied? There is the poverty trap and the issue of discrimination. You should help the Commission to push the Member States to apply those measures. The money is available, but is not being used to solve the problem.
Why is this? Well, in my personal opinion, it might be because it is not very popular in our Member States to take EU money and invest it in the Roma community. I hope I am wrong, and that with the five actions I have proposed, things will change in the future. I count on Parliament to help me move in this direction because alone, with the help of Mr Andor, I will not manage to get that done.
I need your help, but not for party polemics. I need your help to take concrete action to solve and overcome the problems.
If you look at the papers that are available on who spends what for the Roma population, then you will understand that, in the main, our governments are not utilising funds to invest in a better life for the Roma population, though I will leave my colleague, László Andor, to speak on this.
I will take up on the intervention by Mr Swoboda, because its tone was the same as that used by many Members of the European Parliament. I am astonished, because we share the same values and the same principles, and when I look at the resolution by the Socialist Party, it copies word for word what I said in the name of the Commission in August. I will quote what I said then: ‘I regret that ... the rhetoric that has been used in some Member States in the past weeks has been openly discriminatory and partly inflammatory. The situation of the Roma is a serious matter. It should be on the agenda not just in August, but throughout the year, and it should be treated carefully and responsibly by policy makers. National decision makers have an important role to play to ensure both public order and the social integration of all Europeans who choose to live within their territory. Because Europe is not just a common market – it is, at the same time, a Community of values and fundamental rights. The European Commission will watch over this.’
So that was the official declaration by the Commission. However, the Commission refuses to look at the Roma question in black and white, and to make a party political issue of this.
Like you, I condemned very clearly the rhetoric which has been utilised, not only in France, but in many other Member States too. Like you, I believe that freedom of movement is one of the basic freedoms of our European Union. The whole Commission supports this.
However, there are not only rights. There are also obligations, and the Commission has the obligation to balance those rights and obligations, which were not put on the table by us, but which this House decided on in 2004, expressing the interests of the voters. In order to have this balance between rights and obligations put into practice, we have been in contact on a daily basis with the French authorities. We have made this clear, and that is why the Ministers came to Brussels to have a very frank and very clear discussion with the Commission. I have told you what the ministers told the Commission.
At the same time, our legal services are continuing to analyse what the facts are on the ground, because we cannot just declare war on a Member State. There are rules for analysing what a Member State has done, and I told you very clearly that this analysis has not yet finished and that we do not yet have all the proof of whether there was discrimination or not or whether the procedural guarantees were applied, following a case-by-case assessment, with a justified decision in writing and a one month period in which to leave.
All this is still under analysis. We know – and these are hard facts – that France has not implemented the 2004 directive on free movement as regards procedural guarantees, and it is precisely those procedural guarantees that we are speaking about, so the Commission has taken the dossier in hand. That is why today, I sent a letter in the name of the Commission to the French authorities on this exact question. You can be assured that if there is legal evidence concerning France or any country – and you know from the past that ‘big’ countries too can receive accusations from me and that I normally win these before the Court – I will act. But in order to win before the Court, one has to have serious grounds; you cannot just make party political declarations. The Commission is a serious organisation which has to stick to the rules and that is exactly what the Commission does and what it continues to do.
I regret one thing. Let us forget about the party political excitement, as that is normal in politics. I regret that we have actually spoken very little about the fate of the Roma, when that is what we are here for."@en1
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