Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-14-Speech-3-363"
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"en.20010214.12.3-363"2
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"Mr President, the radical members of the Bonino List will vote against the proposal for a Council initiative and therefore, while voting in favour of some of amendments improving the rapporteur’s proposals, we will also vote against the report as a whole.
The fundamental reason for this is one that affects these and all initiatives dealing with the framework of criminal legislation in the Union. As a European federalist, and therefore not a Eurosceptic, I consider it monstrous that criminal legislation should be adopted and implemented without any approval by a democratically and legitimately elected Parliament with the legitimacy to grant it. Here, as elsewhere, I find the road the European Union is taking monstrous.
Criminal law cannot be removed from parliamentary debate. Because of the very delicacy of the matter, it cannot be abstracted from more general considerations relating to society, risks, weights and counterweights, fundamental causes, and economic and social causes. The only line on which European integration policy is advancing rapidly is that of repression, because that is easy. Decisions are prepared by groups of civil servants from the Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs, whose only concern is the efficiency of the repression mechanisms, without any consideration – it is not their fault, that is their craft, their professional approach – or concern for issues arising from society, the economy, work, international policy or development. We are travelling very fast down the line of repression while, on the other lines, such as guaranteeing the right of asylum and the right to a defence, the European Parliament, the European Union, the European Commission and the Council are incapable of making progress. So that is the main reason why we cannot accept the Council’s proposals. We cannot accept a report which does not reject them out of hand because, even on this matter, the European Parliament – as usual – is just being consulted and does not have any real powers.
As to the merit of the argument – as Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and Mrs Frahm have said – it is an illusion to imagine that strengthening the ban on immigration produces anything other than a strengthening of illegal immigration and the forces of illegality overwhelming us. Our frontiers are being overwhelmed by the illegality produced by our prohibitionist laws. That is the reality. We should not delude ourselves that we can solve the problem by tinkering with the penalties for carriers of illegal immigrants without democratic consultation. It is possible – although I hope this does not happen – that we will only succeed in making things worse.
At the same time, the fundamental economic causes are not being addressed. Commissioner Lamy put a brave proposal to the European Commission for unilateral liberalisation of imports from the poorest countries. That is a means of attacking the fundamental causes, not just doling out charity, alms and assistance but opening our markets to their agricultural products and basic manufacturers. ‘Everything but arms’ the proposal was called. It was sunk by the lobbies in the European Union and, consequently, pressure from migrations is growing ever stronger. So the Lamy proposal gets sunk and, at the same time, we delude ourselves that we can solve the problem by a few months’ increase in the penalties meted out to those who ply a trade we have presented them with as a gift, for profits we, with our laws, make possible.
We cannot delude ourselves – I say this to Mr Ceyhun and Members on the left – that partial improvement – we are in favour of certain amendments – of this repressive framework can change the situation. Only as a lesser evil do we support the distinction between immigration for economic profit and immigration for humanitarian purposes, but we do not think it can solve the problem, as you on the left point out yourselves, when you assert that economic causes are ultimately responsible for immigration. How can you sustain the argument that economic causes are the fundamental causes and, at the same time, take such a strong stand against the entrepreneurs and profiteers running illegal immigration?
This prohibitionist attitude is not confined to immigration alone, but also to the labour market and the new forms of employment – part-time work, temporary work, short-term contracts, seasonal contracts – and it is an attitude that the left, and the unions too, are largely responsible for in Europe. Let us not try to salve our consciences by attacking the entrepreneurs and those who exploit labour for, in the eyes of the exploited, the people condemned to die in their own country of hunger and a total lack of the means to survive, the European entrepreneur-exploiter may well be the only hope of advancement and salvation for them and their families.
So I conclude, Mr President, by confirming the vote of the Bonino List radical Members against the motion."@en1
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