Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-14-Speech-3-053"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000614.4.3-053"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the fact that we are already able to discuss this issue here today and I should like to start by saying that I consider this, to all intents and purposes, to be the first reading of the Lalumière report, because Mrs Lalumière has invested a great deal of expertise and work in this project.
According to the Treaty, this European Parliament is responsible for parliamentary control, including and especially of the Petersberg tasks, which is why the control function of the European Parliament must also be strengthened. We shall also endeavour to bring about cooperation as well as collaboration with the foreign and defence policy committees of national parliaments in order to close gaps and cooperate with the parliaments of candidate and other countries. But this European Parliament is named in the Treaty as the parliamentary controller of foreign, security and defence policy to the exclusion of all others.
We must stress that, after Amsterdam, Cologne and Helsinki, a great deal of progress has been made in developing the foreign, security and defence policy and we would like to thank the Council and the Commission for making this progress possible in these areas. It is the result of our understanding that a disaster such as we have witnessed in the Balkans must never happen again. We must guarantee that Europe has the authority to act in the area of foreign, security and defence policy, the authority which allows us to safeguard our interests jointly; however, at the same time, we must make it clear that this is not an alternative to the transatlantic alliance. This development complements NATO, which will continue to remain responsible for collective security in Europe.
We as the European Parliament have already come to this conclusion by intensifying and institutionalising collaboration with the NATO parliamentary assembly. We must realise that Amsterdam transferred the Petersberg tasks of the WEU to the European Union and that, as a result, practically all areas of the Western European Union now come under the responsibility of the European Union.
All that remains is Article 5. I think this Intergovernmental Conference should consider whether Article 5 can be adopted in the form of a protocol to the EU Treaty and whether we should leave it to each Member State to take a sovereign decision as to whether or not it subscribes to this protocol. This is surely a way for non-allied, neutral countries to find their own way as members of the European Union while, at the same time, allowing collaboration in practically all circumstances.
In the long run, this must be credibly sustained by the European Union. We are a Union with our own legislation, which has resulted in our own legal system, and with our own interests based on the internal market and monetary union, which is why areas with different standards of security within the European Union must be a thing of the past. This will surely help to develop a coherent foreign, security and defence policy.
We can see, precisely in Community matters, that the European Union has a plethora of instruments which are important for foreign and security policy, especially for civil crisis management, and that we are therefore able to provide more foreign aid than the United States Congress, that trade policy is the responsibility of the Commission and therefore that the nucleus of our potential to act is a Community remit and that we should not assign the development of a foreign, security and defence policy to intergovernmental collaboration.
The European Parliament will advocate bringing the Community position, the Community part to the fore. We are of course delighted that we have a highly qualified High Representative in the person of Mr Solana, but it has always been the aim of the European Parliament in the long run to have a European foreign secretary incorporated into the Community area as part of the Commission. This is unattainable at present for certain reasons, but we should strive towards it. It is still our aim.
We can see that the Commission has a large stake and that foreign and security policy is being formulated in the European Council. Defence is still a matter for national governments when it comes to equipment and similar questions. This must be merged, including practically, so that such absurdities never occur again. If we just think that today the foreign secretary of Kazakhstan will be received by fifteen foreign secretaries, the Commissioner responsible for foreign affairs and the High Representative, then I think this makes for wonderful Council meetings, but it is not a sign of any particular authority to act on the part of the European Union. I think that we must speak up with one voice more loudly here and the Troika of Council President, High Representative and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam should first establish the Union’s authority to act; we should not have any other definitions in this area.
We must also ensure that this Treaty improves our decision-making mechanisms and we should not forget the huge shortcomings brought to light in the organisational disaster in Kosovo, which are the reason for the lack of an arms export policy and which have so far forestalled unity in the EU Treaty. We must recognise the fact that we are squandering money in national budgets. We spend more on defence than America, but with far fewer results. This also applies to transport, satellites and such like."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples