Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-11-Speech-2-697-000"
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"en.20120911.42.2-697-000"2
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"Mr President, I am very moved. I am moved because we have two wonderful rapporteurs who, in their diversity, managed to bring to this House and to our action the human feelings and the emotions which we need in our European policy making.
They will get specialist support, targeted for victims of sexual violence, victims of gender-based violence, victims of domestic violence, and children who are always going to be considered vulnerable. Particular attention will be paid to some categories of victims, victims of terrorism, organised crime, human trafficking, gender-based violence, sexual violence, exploitation, hate crime, victims of disabilities. They are all human beings and our responsibility here is to care for them.
Our victims package of today, our directive, our European law, is going to be the first step to address the rights for victims of crime across the European Union. We are going to tackle as a next step the compensation to victims by the offender. Once an agreement has been found between Parliament and the Council, we will be able to help and assist the Member States in getting those provisions introduced into national law, and we will support practical projects on the ground that are crucial for ensuring that victims can obtain effective rights in practice. We are going to say loud and clear: ‘we Europeans care about people’ – and support to victims is about caring about people.
My thanks to all those people who have managed to help in order to make this legislation become a reality.
European policy making is not about institutions; it is not about this Parliament; it is not about the Commission; it is not about giving power to Brussels. European policy making is about giving help to people, making them feel that Europe is their place to be, that wherever they go they will feel secure, that somebody cares, and the question of victims which we discussed today is a very good example of this Europe we are building together.
When I became Commissioner for Justice, I had to look at criminal justice and I discovered that of course, in the different Member States, we have very different systems. They all have grown, some over centuries and some over decades. They are all
and they all have their values, but they are very different.
What about the citizens who are travelling from one country to another – whether as tourists or students, or because they want to work in a neighbouring country? They are lost when they find themselves victims in a system they do not know, because it is their home system that they are primarily aware of. That was the first element.
The second element was when I analysed what is happening in criminal justice, I saw that everything revolves around the criminal, the one who has committed a crime; but in most of our justice systems, the victims of crime receive no attention. That is the person who really counts – or indeed ‘the persons’ if we look at the family of those victims.
I had a very important experience with a mother, a mother whose son had been severely injured during a holiday trip to a beautiful southern island. This mother’s name is Maggie Hughes, and when she wanted to help her son, she had no possibility of helping him. She went to a foreign country, she did not understand the language, she could not speak to the doctors, she could not speak to the police, she had nobody to help her.
What did this woman do after this terrible experience? She did not come to me and say: can you not do this or that for my son? She asked me: can you not draw up European legislation so that what I have lived through will never happen to another mother? That was the origin of what we are discussing today. That was the origin of saying: yes, we put people at the centre of our European endeavours; yes, we are making laws which will help our people, our 500 million citizens, so that wherever they go and whatever happens to them, they will feel at home in the place where they have a problem.
Therefore, thank you Parliament, thank you Council. Thank you for having made this possible. I think that the message we give today on 11 September, when we think about victims of terrorism, is that we also think about all victims. We think about the woman who has been raped; we think about the child who finds himself without any help; we think about the people who have been burgled; we think about the wife whose husband has been murdered in a neighbouring country; and we say ‘how can we help them so that they get their rights?’
What we are doing today is not about the direct victims, it is also about the families of those victims who very often feel completely alone and helpless. In future, Europe is going to be there in order to help them. They are going to be part of the judicial system. The police are going to be specially trained to care for victims’ needs. Victims will get information from the point of first contact with the authorities; they will be provided with interpretation and translation to enable their participation in the court action."@en1
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