Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-02-16-Speech-3-491-000"
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"en.20110216.16.3-491-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, it can never be said often enough that what is happening in the southern Mediterranean and, more generally, in the Arab world, is historic, especially for those peoples who, half a century after their countries gained independence through decolonisation, are today gaining their individual and collective freedoms. It is historic, but also unexpected, as are all popular revolutions, I hear you say. However, this new situation requires us to totally rethink our vision, our policies and our relationships with these countries. Proposals have been made.
Indeed, the caution with which we have reacted to date is easily and worryingly explained by our obsession with stability, by which I mean that safety-first approach fuelled by our fears, an approach of which the sole priorities were the fight against immigration, terrorism and radical Islam, along with some economic interests, not least access to energy.
We accepted authoritarian regimes, when their sole aim was to confirm our fears. The people’s revolt has made the failure of our policies plain to see; we no longer have the right to go on basing our analyses on the same fears, or, worse still, the same xenophobia-tinged beliefs. That is why we must stand side by side with those who aspire to greater freedom and democracy, in places where it is possible to be Muslim, democratic and secular. That is the message that we are being sent."@en1
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