Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-01-13-Speech-1-132"
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"en.20030113.7.1-132"2
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"Mr President, when Commissioner Verheugen reported to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the subject of eastward enlargement, I put two questions to him. The first was whether the Commission regarded a common framework for border control as necessary; and the second was whether the Commission believed that the candidate countries would be in a position to secure their borders with countries outside the EU to the same high standard of protection as the existing Member States already did. The Commissioner's reply was that the candidate countries would have no problem with guaranteeing a satisfactory level of protection on their own, and that there was no need for a European approach.
The Commission has now changed its mind and presented a sensible proposal for a common framework for control of our external borders. Mr Pirker's report supports it and adds to it at various points, and Mr Coelho is unfortunately no longer here to hear me say that it goes without saying that I wholeheartedly support it too. It is to be regretted that Commissioner Verheugen has wasted a lot of valuable time by talking rubbish. One example of why this is a matter of urgency is the border between Germany and Poland, 456 kilometres long and formed by a river, where traffic across it is at present monitored by some 10 000 border guards. Poland's border with its non-EU neighbours is over 1 200 kilometres long and runs across fields for the whole of its length. The belief that, within the next few years, Poland will be able to secure this border on its own in anything like the same way as external borders used to be secured, is utterly illusory.
This is where European solidarity is needed, as the defence of the external borders by a number of Member States is to the ultimate benefit of all Member States. Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands reap the benefits of a high level of external border control. Any European concept of external border control must, at the end of the day, be enshrined in the Treaties, both by the allocation of combined powers to the EU and, on the other hand, by giving it institutional form as a European body in parallel with Europol and Eurojust.
And, in these present times, as Cato did in the senate of ancient Rome, I will end all my speeches with the same words: Commissioner Vitorino, I wish that the Convention would demonstrate greater courage in this area."@en1
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