Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-19-Speech-3-028"
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"en.20010919.6.3-028"2
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"Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I believe that we have already had the opportunity to discuss the root of the problem in the past and that we will have further opportunities to do so in the future. In this debate, therefore, I shall not discuss the general philosophy of the course of action to take. I would simply like to reiterate a few points, which some of our leaders now seem to have forgotten. We must realise that our first problem is identifying our enemy. We must not have any illusions – there are Islamic fundamentalists that have decided to carry out attacks against Western democracies. We must be aware of this. You must also be aware that there are more or less dormant terrorist organisations in all of our countries and they could very easily become active overnight.
In this respect, I would like to add something to the extremely interesting comments and thoughts of Commissioner Vitorino, and that is I hope the European Union will cease to subsidise the States that harbour or assist terrorists. I believe that this is a practical step that we ourselves could take and one that could be taken fairly swiftly.
My second point is that we very clearly cannot contemplate taking any action worthy of that name, unless there is also sincere political cooperation between States, first and foremost between Member States of the European Union. I can remember a time, not so long ago, and I am not sure that this period is behind us, when the ‘every man for himself’ mentality still prevailed and we accepted the presence of some organisations on our own soil on the condition that no action would be taken, even if this meant action would be carried out in a neighbouring country. I therefore feel that we must have true solidarity and it must be clearly expressed.
My third point is that I believe we must realise that, in order for action combating terrorism to be worthwhile, it must be preventive. We must, therefore, enhance the work of the intelligence services. I listened very carefully to everything that was said earlier about the need for Europol to be effective. I am fully in favour of enhancing Europol’s effectiveness, but this will not enable you to begin fighting against terrorism instantly. We need genuine, immediate cooperation between the intelligence and security services, a sincere exchange of information and for States to be able to take the necessary measures, whatever some States might think – and, for the moment, it is the States who are responsible for security as part of their cooperation.
I shall not elaborate any further. That is what I wanted to say this evening and I would stress one thing. I have been listening to a philosophical debate on whether the action against the United States is an act of war or an act of terrorism. Given the magnitude of these acts, I believe that they are acts of war. And if we do not realise that they may well only be the first of many, then we will pay an extremely high price for our blindness."@en1
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