Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-13-Speech-3-158"
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"en.20001213.6.3-158"2
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"Mr President, I should like to take advantage of this debate on relations between Europe and the United States to make three observations and to make three recommendations on the basis of these.
Firstly, we must not lose sight of the fact that Europe has been built in opposition to empires or, rather, between empires. The Soviet Union was a threatening empire and the United States of America was a protective empire, but one
which we had every intention of affirming our identity.
Secondly, even if the retreat of the Communist threat is a cause for rejoicing, the collapse of the Soviet Union has left us with a single superpower in the form of the United States of America. Now, it is a law of nature that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there are symptoms of such corruption, for instance: a form of economic diplomacy which might be summed up in the words, ‘what is ours is ours and what is yours is negotiable’, the claim of establishing a new world order, a
whose influence is far from that of always promoting peace, and the unacceptable development of unqualified interference in the internal affairs of other States.
The conclusion must be drawn that the traditional friendship and real sympathy we have for the American people is to no avail here. The United States of America is our competitor. It has no problem defending its own interests. We ought, in turn, to defend ours.
Three recommendations, therefore. We must question the usefulness of arrangements such as NATO which no longer fulfil their original objective of ensuring common security and which are compromising our freedom. We must defend our political autonomy and stop taking sides with the United States, whether it be in the UNO, with regard to Iraq or the Arab world in general, in Asia or in the Balkans, where our actions, Mr Patten, have had disastrous consequences, whatever you may say. Finally, we should have no problem defending our own economic interests, not only within the WTO but, above all, in areas which, from culture to agriculture, are coterminous with European civilisation and must not therefore be subject simply to the laws of the market or of international barter.
That is what all Europeans should be saying if they are concerned to see the type of independent Europe which we have portrayed to our compatriots and for which, in reality, we are still waiting."@en1
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"pax Americana"1
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