Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-10-27-Speech-3-017"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.19991027.1.3-017"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I should like, on behalf of my Group, to ask and answer three questions. The first question is this: was the Tampere Summit an important summit? I should like to say yes to this question on three counts. Firstly, because the subject of internal security was brought to heads-of-government level and wrested from the nation-state mentalities of the Ministers for justice and the interior. In this connection, I should like to thank former President Jacques Santer and José Maria Aznar, who were at the Pörtschach Summit, and who provided the impetus there for the summit on security in Tampere.
Secondly, this summit was important because it gave a signal to the citizens of Europe. The summit said in effect: we are here for the sake of your security. Where the Member States have come to the end of what it is open to them to do, the European Union steps in: in asylum policy, in migration policy, in the fight against organised crime and in cooperation concerning justice. Thirdly, this summit was important because, although we may so far have managed to translate economic and monetary union into reality, the special summit took the first step in the direction of a union for security and in the direction of an area of freedom, security and justice for the citizens of Europe.
The second question is this: was this summit a success? We still cannot at present answer this question with certainty. In 2001, when the initial results will be there to see, we shall be able to say whether it has been a success by then, and we shall be able to say in five years’ time whether Tampere was a success. What we can state, however, is that there have been many small successes and instances of progress. The first and important one is this: it has clearly established goals, responsibilities and deadlines for the first time. In other words, we have been placed in a position to monitor how progress actually occurs.
The second important feature – and the reason why Tampere was a success – is this: it provided for the first time clear distinctions in asylum policy, labour migration policy and the policy for dealing with temporary refugees, which is to say people driven from their homes by war. It also provided the first concrete measures for taking action in these particular areas. In asylum policy, it is important to issue a clear declaration of belief in the Geneva Convention and to declare our support for rapid, joint procedures, but also to set about tackling abuse. In the case of migration policy, it was important to make a clear statement that there exists a commitment to combating abuse and a stated belief in hands-on management and in a country’s capacity to receive and integrate refugees as a basis for management of this kind. The first initiatives have been taken to establish sensible measures with a view to receiving temporary refugees.
A further point concerned the taking of concrete measures in connection with combating organised crime. These included more operational powers for Europol, a European police college or more stringent measures to combat money laundering, and cooperation with the candidate countries, for these are very often the countries where organised crime originates. A further point is the cooperation introduced here concerning the matter of justice, for it is only if there is cooperation in this area that organised crime can also be successfully combated. This means that the constituent elements of particular criminal offences are to be defined, that substantive criminal law is to be harmonised, that there is to be mutual recognition of court judgements, that EUROJUST is to be set up and that there is to be protection for the victims of crime: all in all, a full range of measures signifying that the summit was a success.
Let me nonetheless briefly pose the question: what critical comments might be made? Announcing the results of Tampere as the Council has done here is to fundamentally misinterpret the Amsterdam Treaty. Cooperation with Parliament also means cooperation in the relevant committee. We missed seeing the Ministers for justice and the interior here on the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. Little that is concrete has emerged on the subject of labour migration. Nor, unfortunately, has any uniform asylum system emerged, and there has been nothing on how the burden is to be shared.
Overall, however, I must say that, in spite of all the critical comments which can be made, Tampere is, for the time being, a success. It was a first step in the direction of a union for security and it now lets us together set to work in the interests of security and of the citizens of Europe."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples