Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-07-06-Speech-3-479-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110706.24.3-479-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, allow me first to thank my fellow Members who have widely contributed to this report on democratisation to the extent that at times, I struggle to keep up. However, they did it in an extremely positive spirit and their contribution helped to enrich the report.
That is, in a nutshell, the approach we have taken in our work. While for us, this project still has some way to go, we have made progress on both sides before achieving a final outcome today; we think that it is a worthwhile project which needs to be taken up, but at present, we are still not quite in agreement as to the European Parliament’s positions nor as to the Polish project. However, we need to continue the negotiations and I am sure that they will be conclusive.
Now, what does this report contain? Firstly, it was largely inspired by what happened in North Africa and by these Arab revolutions. Indeed, all this has created a problem for us, the European Union. Has what we have done in relation to past regimes and the use we have made of the instruments at our disposal really helped us to support democracy to any real extent? The first answer is no. We did not support democracy, we supported what we hoped to be stability in the region, but stability without democracy can also lead to a police state.
Therefore, a complete rethink was needed and today, this report proposes a few suggestions. The first suggestion is slightly philosophical, but it is fundamental: let us rebuild our policies towards our neighbours according to our values, values that we share and, in particular, democracy. That is what must come first.
The second suggestion is to dare, to dare play the card of political democracy a bit more. We played the democracy card by telling ourselves ‘As long as there is development and economic growth in a country, democracy will follow’. No, democracy does not always follow. Of course, wealth can be distributed very unevenly. Therefore, we must also be able to support political and democratic structures in those countries and act as a political guide.
At present, with these transitions and the world undergoing massive changes, we come to realise that we may not have all the necessary instruments to precisely provide political support to these democracies. We have election observation missions, but these are not enough; we must follow up on things, we must do more follow-up and the report mentions this.
The third point that the report raises is that we must support the civil societies and the influential stakeholders within these civil societies, and there is no shortage of examples to show that there are many new civil stakeholders who can play a decisive role in these democratic transitions, such as a free press, the Internet, women, unions, youth associations and so on.
Those are the main elements of the report. Now, have we got the required instruments? We have numerous instruments. Currently, there are many instruments that can be used in a more consistent and effective way for democracy.
We have the instrument of the Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, but we also have, as per the Treaty of Lisbon, the ability to make better use of our trade agreements; we have the stability instrument, we have a whole range of instruments. Now, is all that enough? Are these instruments effective? Do they go straight to the point? Are they reactive, proactive, fast-acting? Well, they may not be proactive enough and fast-acting enough, and we probably need to strengthen and improve them. Should we create new ones? I needed a great deal of persuading and we, or rather the Polish Presidency, came up with a splendid project: ‘Endowment for democracy’. I said to myself ‘Yet another instrument, when we have not even made full use of all the others!’
So, in the end, what is the outcome of these thoughts today? We are not against. We are not against this splendid project of the Polish Presidency. Poland has a long history and fine examples of democratisation to show us. Only, we do not think that this should replace what is there already. We believe that all this should remain under the European Parliament’s control, if money from the budget has been used to fund it. We believe that this project should not be too unwieldy, that it should not add an extra administrative burden, but that it can be interesting, used in an
fashion, to fund some stakeholders who are difficult to fund through the current instruments."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples