Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-11-21-Speech-3-024-000"
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"en.20121121.4.3-024-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, listening to this line of argument, I find it very difficult to comprehend why you are working so hard to play down the value of the European Union. In my view, given the critical situation facing the European Union, what you are doing is simply engaging in smear tactics. I think it is unworthy of the House that speeches of this nature are being delivered here, when we have so little opportunity to rein you in.
I do not believe that you are genuinely representing the interests of the citizens of the United Kingdom when you unleash this kind of attack on the European Union and ultimately indulge in nothing more than nationalistic rhetoric and smear tactics.
I am sorry, but from my perspective, the situation is far too serious for that. Today, I heard a speech by Mr Barroso which I could actually agree with in many respects for the first time, although I noted the undertone, namely that this was a speech born out of desperation. It was a speech delivered against the backdrop of what is likely to happen at the summit over the last few days. Will our political leaders finally realise that they are the ones who are responsible for the functioning and, indeed, the survival and the future of the European Union, and that they need to find some common ground and take the important decisions that are needed?
The fact is that what has been submitted to us as the proposals for the budget, for the multiannual financial framework, will not help to strengthen the Union’s cohesion. The fact is that the current proposals are all based on drastic budget cuts. You are wrong when you say that what is being demanded here is an increase. Ultimately, what the Commission is additionally proposing merely balances out the extra tasks that have been assigned to the European Union and the challenges that the European Union is prepared to face.
Ultimately, no more money is being spent on administration or, indeed, on anything else, and it is quite simply a false argument to claim, as you do every time, that we need to make savings and focus on better spending first and foremost. If there are no resources available for better spending, your arguments fall wide of the mark.
Let me ask you this: how is the European Union meant to continue its campaign against poverty and social exclusion in future, for example, if the current proposals for the European budget for 2014-2020 already envisage a reduction in the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived, as they most certainly do? In de facto terms, this is a cut. You cannot simply say that what happens during the crisis in the European Union leaves you cold, when more and more people are falling into abject poverty and their livelihoods are at risk. You cannot say, ‘Oh well, Great Britain is 10 times more important to us’ in the belief that you can prevent this crisis from impacting on the most deprived people in your country as well. At that point, you will find that you are relying on European solidarity once again: and that means the solidarity that you are dragging through the mud today. Let me make that very clear.
I urge you – and I urge the German Government as well – to abandon this position, which erodes solidarity, and to give up these blocking tactics. By its actions, the Council is turning itself into a useless institution, and it will destroy the European Union unless different positions are adopted here at last, and by that I mean positions which have nothing to with narrow-minded, mean-spirited and nationalistic interests."@en1
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