Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-007"
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Mr President, I shall comment very briefly on the issue raised by Mr Van Orden. This Parliament is well aware that the Council has attended to the issue of Zimbabwe on various occasions and that this matter was addressed at the Barcelona European Council. I have been following the matter very closely and I can tell you that a General Affairs Council will be held next Monday. Let us hope that we can deal with the matter at Minister of Foreign Affairs level and should it prove necessary or appropriate, it could then be raised at the Seville European Council.
Secondly, the Heads of State and Government will be discussing a global plan to combat illegal immigration. Then there will be a discussion of a programme and a policy on protecting the Union’s external borders. Lastly, a debate will be held on integrating migration policy into the Union’s external actions.
With regard to the first issue I mentioned, the European Council, in line with the conclusions of the Tampere Council and of following Councils, is going to urge the Council to approve, within the deadlines laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the necessary legislative instruments to adopt a common asylum and immigration policy. This policy must respect the balance between a set of principles, such as the protection of refugees, the Union and the Member States’ ability to receive asylum seekers and the integration of legal immigrants.
Secondly, the negotiations currently underway on adopting a common policy in the field of asylum and legal immigration will be given a boost if at the same time the Union develops a common policy to combat illegal immigration, which produces effective results in the short and medium term. For these reasons, on 28 February of this year, the Council approved its plan to combat illegal immigration. This will also be addressed by the European Council.
In addition to vigilance and closer monitoring of the borders and of border crossing points, one of the plan’s aims is to prevent the illegal crossing of the external borders of the Member States of the Union, whilst at the same time ensuring that asylum seekers can exercise their right to ask for international protection. In this context, the communication that the Commission presented recently, entitled "Towards integrated management of the external borders of the Member States of the European Union" takes on particular importance.
Lastly, on the basis of the agreement reached at the Laeken Summit, in Seville the European Council will demonstrate its desire to integrate immigration policy much more deeply into the Union’s external actions.
The guiding principle of external action in the field of immigration and asylum with the countries of origin and of transit must be a global, integrated and balanced approach, which uses all the Community and Member States’ instruments in a coordinated way to establish a relationship of cooperation with a view to ensuring the joint management of migratory flows, and to address the underlying causes of these flows and of poverty, in order to incorporate this dimension into development aid policy. Something else that will be raised is the development of an external strategy for areas in the immediate vicinity of borders to cooperate in the management and control of migratory flows.
The other major package of issues, to which I referred at the beginning, is everything that concerns institutional affairs, the debate on the future of Europe and the reform of the Council.
There are essentially two matters of an institutional nature, on which we shall focus: the debate on the future of Europe and the reform of the Council of Ministers.
With regard to the first issue, the Convention on the future of Europe held its inaugural sitting on 28 February, as you will remember, because this took place in the seat of the European Parliament, and before Seville, the Convention will already have held five plenary sessions. Furthermore, I think we can draw some preliminary conclusions from the debates that have taken place to date.
On the one hand, the majority of the members of the Convention have shown themselves to be in favour of going more deeply into the process of European integration in a realistic way, in particular with regard to the distribution of competences. On the other hand, and in relation to the works of the Convention, the Presidium has agreed to set up six working groups, which are to present their conclusions between September and November.
With regard to the Seville European Council, Mr President, from 21 to 22 June the second and last European Council of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union will take place in Seville. Five basic issues will be addressed at this Council: the process of economic reforms, as a follow-up to the Barcelona European Council; the current state of negotiations on enlargement, a process on which we have made substantial progress; issues of Justice and Home Affairs, in particular immigration policy; the debate on the future of Europe, with a report from the President of the Convention, Mr Giscard d'Estaing; and the issues of greatest concern in the context of the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy).
In Seville, in line with the provisions of the Laeken declaration, the President of the Convention, Mr Giscard d'Estaing, will present an oral report on the progress achieved in the Convention’s works.
With regard to the reform of the Council, and in accordance with the conclusions of the Barcelona European Council, the Presidency will present a report in Seville on improving its functioning and on reforms to make it more effective on the basis of the report submitted by the Secretary General of the Council, in the aim of ensuring greater transparency in the legislative process and in which practical measures for its adoption will be put forward.
I should like, of course, to clarify something that to me seems obvious, but which bears repeating, and that is that these Council reforms only refer to internal reforms, to internal organisation, and that in no case does the Council intend to address issues that require a reform of primary law, because this, of course, is a matter for the Intergovernmental Conference and for the European Convention preparing the Intergovernmental Conference. The Council will, therefore, be considering a set of practical reforms that will make the work of the European Council more rapid and more dynamic and which, furthermore, as you would expect, move towards the system employed by the Councils that support the European Council.
I hope that the European Council can now begin to attempt to simplify its administrative tasks so as to prepare the Union for a scenario in which, following enlargement, we will have 25 Member States.
Lastly, the European Council, as you would expect and as is the norm, will have to deal with the field of external relations focussing essentially on the following issues: firstly, the situation in the Middle East. On this matter the European Union will maintain its efforts to achieve a negotiated solution to the conflict, by condemning the use of violence and by promoting conciliation as an instrument of joint action geared towards making progress in the economic, political and security spheres.
In particular, with regard to the crisis of the Church of the Nativity, the Council has been pleased at the resolution of this crisis in line with the memorandum of understanding signed by both sides. The Palestinians affected by the agreement have been transferred to various Member States of the Union – Spain, Belgium, Ireland, Italy and Portugal – to be accepted, for humanitarian reasons, in line with the common position reached by the Council on 21 May.
The adoption of this common position underlines the commitment of the European Union to achieving a lasting peace in the Middle East. I therefore believe that, in the context of these recent actions, the European Council will study the situation and will try once again to give impetus to the latest initiatives to be put forward by the High Representative, Mr Solana, for a Peace Conference to take place as soon as possible.
At the same time, the Council will study developments in issues of security and defence policy, in particular, in relation to the fight against terrorism and the follow-up to the Laeken mandate.
I also believe that the European Council will be forced to deal with the conflict between India and Pakistan to which I shall now specifically refer. Despite having historically been strictly bilateral, this conflict today contains a new dimension, which transcends the sub-regional consequences to become a potential factor for destabilisation for the entire Asian Continent and for the whole world
Given
the possibility of a fourth India-Pakistan conflagration, which could spiral out of control towards nuclear escalation, the international community must react unambiguously. At the end of last year, following the tragic attacks by terrorists on elected representatives in Srinagar and New Delhi, the Presidency held talks with both governments to urge both sides to prevent a military escalation, to reopen political dialogue and to find political formulas to resolve the problem of Kashmir.
I shall now briefly discuss the issues I have mentioned. I shall start with the economic issues – the follow-up to the Spring European Council. This follow-up will be one of the fundamental elements of this forthcoming European Council, since the Spring European Council laid down a programme and a follow-up for certain issues and established a set of tasks to be revised in Seville.
After the encouraging speech given by President Musharraf on 12 January, New Delhi reacted with a sense of historical opportunity to this conciliatory gesture by Pakistan and agreed to stop military mobilisation. Nevertheless, further devastating attacks – in Kaluchak and in Srinagar – border skirmishes and the re-emergence of the dialectic of confrontation, with the recent missile tests by Pakistan that matched those by India in January, have brought both armies to the brink of war.
We only have to remember the tone of the disappointing speech by the President of Pakistan on 27 May and the cold rigidity of India’s response to the calls for containment made at the highest political levels. Here we must recall the visits to New Delhi and Islamabad by the Secretary of State, Mr Powell, by Commissioner Patten, by the Foreign Secretary, Mr Straw, the calls by Presidents Chirac and Putin and, lastly, the tour currently being undertaken by the United States’ Defence Secretary, Mr Rumsfeld.
The Union has to date wished to maintain a position that is as even-handed as possible in this conflict, insisting on the need for both sides to make efforts to reconcile their positions. This was the idea that inspired the Presidency declaration on this matter, issued on 21 May. Despite the undeniable efforts by the Pakistanis against the hideouts of Al-Qaida cells, the international community must not tolerate any link between the operation of the nuclear umbrella and political cross-border claims. For this reason, Pakistan’s commitment against organised terror must be total and unconditional and not selective in its efforts or in the deadlines it sets.
I should like, specifically, to remind you that, at the General Affairs Council held last Monday, the ministers agreed to convey a new message, this time not in the form of a Council declaration, but in the form of a press communiqué, with the President of the General Affairs Council, Mr Piqué, informing the media, in order to encourage both sides at a time when we are already seeing signs of relaxation, such as the fact that India has already opened its air space to civilian Pakistani flights and the fact that currently there seems to be a more relaxed atmosphere, in which the alert has been withdrawn along the militarised lines.
Nor must we forget the European victims of the attacks that were carried out in April and May in Islamabad. Let us remember the bomb set off in the Protestant church of a diplomatic neighbourhood and, in Karachi, the suicide attack on a bus containing French military advisers and technical specialists, as tragic proof that innocent EU citizens have not been excluded from terrorist madness in the region.
In these circumstances, the Presidency considers that the strategy of diplomatic monitoring of both sides must be maintained, albeit whilst now calling, with greater firmness, if necessary, for new gestures of conciliation by both sides which will satisfy the legitimate demands – especially by India – for terrorism to be firmly dealt with. New Delhi and Islamabad must realise that the international community does not – and will not – understand if either of the two countries resorts to military force. Since 17 May, more than 60 people have died at the India-Pakistan border; a million soldiers from the two sides are watching each other from the line of control, awaiting orders to start a conflict which, if it happens, – whatever its final outcome may be – will mean desolation and death for the population of both countries.
Consequently, as I have already said, the European Union will continue to help ensure that both sides understand the need to keep the paths of dialogue open, in order to prevent a military scenario arising, the consequences of which would have a tragic affect on the entire continent of Asia. I would say that next week, in Seville, the message of the Heads of State and Government will be along these lines, in the hope that the already nascent actions to decrease the tension that are taking place will increase with every passing day and that we will be able, at the end of next week, to see a situation that is calmer than the one we saw a few days ago.
Mr President, I should like to conclude this statement by expressing my hope and my belief that the Seville European Council will be a good ending to the term of the Spanish Presidency, during which none of us have spared any effort to push forwards our common idea of Europe and to make the motto that we proposed at the beginning of our Presidency – 'more Europe' – a reality.
Barcelona represented the continuation of the process inaugurated at the Lisbon European Council, which focused on a programme of economic reforms in the aim of making the European Union the most dynamic and competitive region in the world in the context of the new economy of the information society.
In Seville, therefore, and as a follow-up to Barcelona, the following issues will be examined: firstly, Ecofin – which is due to meet on 20 June, before the European Council – will present a final report on the adoption of the broad economic policy guidelines. The Presidency intends to present a report on the current state of work on the tax package, which includes a range of initiatives on savings tax, energy tax and cooperation with tax authorities.
The issue of 'corporate governance' (the governance of businesses) will also be addressed. For this reason, the report by the high level working group on company law must discuss three issues: the role of non-executive directors and of boards of directors, company directors’ pay and the board of directors’ responsibility for preparing information about the company’s finances.
Other issues left pending from the Barcelona European Council and which will be addressed by the Seville Council are: the simplification and improvement of regulations – known as 'better regulation'; economic services of general interest – the Commission will also present the report that has been requested of it; energy supply – on which it will present another report; telecommunications, education, research; the outermost regions and sustainable development.
The second major issue that I announced was that of negotiations on enlargement. Unless you ask me to provide further information, Mr President, I would prefer not to dwell on the issue of enlargement, since today a substantive debate is going to be held on the matter. Therefore, as enlargement will be the subject of a specifically scheduled statement this very evening, I think we could keep the debate short and leave this issue for later.
Issues of Justice and Home Affairs have been one of the main priorities of the Spanish Presidency of the Union. In Seville we will be pressing ahead on these issues in four main areas: firstly, a review of Community asylum and immigration policy will be undertaken – basically a review of the Tampere commitments – as well as an assessment of the situation and a clear programme to fulfil the commitments that we adopted in 1999 during the Finnish Presidency, as a consequence of the communitarisation of Justice and Home Affairs issues, formalised in the Treaty of Amsterdam."@en1
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