Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-17-Speech-3-225"
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"en.19991117.7.3-225"2
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"Mr President, I should like first of all to thank the rapporteurs. They have certainly carried out a complicated and difficult piece of work. I think that Parliament, as the representative of our citizens, will continue to have some intensive work to do within the framework of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference so that it might in actual fact do justice to the high expectations of people both in the European Union and also in the applicant States.
Our Group will actively involve itself in the debate by making a number of proposals of its own. We are fighting above all for the creation of a genuinely social and democratic Europe, a Europe which retains the European model of the social State, a Europe in which public services are not deregulated away and in which everything is done to prevent social dumping. It is clear to us that the Amsterdam left-overs ought not to remain the only subjects of the Intergovernmental Conference. In view of the enlargement which we all want to see, the European Union and its Member States must finally summon up the courage to undertake radical reforms so that a still politically divided Europe might grow together democratically and in terms of the social contract between citizens.
What is unsettling, indeed thoroughly alarming, is what has been set in motion in the field of foreign and security policy and the vehemence with which hitherto civil European integration is being shelved and a military Union is being created. In Parliament’s report, for example, it is proposed that the European Union must finally acquire the ability to act – an ability to act based upon credible military resources. I would ask you all, please, what are credible military resources supposed to include. Personnel mines, tanks or even nuclear weapons?
On Monday, in Brussels, the foreign and defence ministers defined where we are headed. This was an historic step. By 2003, a rapid strike force is to be created under the umbrella of the EU, in effect a European army of 50,000 men for crisis operations in and around Europe. Yesterday, the German daily newspaper, “Die Welt” characterised the plans as follows: the traditional defence of Europe would remain solely the responsibility of NATO; the EU strike force is not to compete with it but instead become its new trump card.
Against this background, our Group had already submitted a motion to the Committee to the effect that the European Union should repudiate war as a means of solving international conflicts. I find it downright incomprehensible that this proposal should not have found majority support in the Committee. Our Group will again submit this motion tomorrow in the Plenum. We shall request a roll-call vote for we are of the opinion that citizens are entitled to know who in this Chamber regards war as legitimate."@en1
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