Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-013"
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"en.20030311.3.2-013"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, we are presented here today with a highly technocratic document and a speech by you, Mr Prodi. I would not want to deny that the speech, being political, is more to my taste. What I would like to do is to try and bridge the gulf between the two elements.
Now for the third objective – sustainable growth. I admit that this is a very vague concept, but it is one that already means a number of things to me. I simply ask myself whether we really do have a coherent policy for growth. We invest too little – not only in research and development, but also in infrastructure. Think of public transport, which could also do more for the environment. Too little is being done to make educational establishments more efficient while maintaining access to them for the broad mass of the population.
We often accuse people – our own citizens – of lacking the willingness and courage to take risks. If, though, the gaps in the social networks in our own countries become ever wider and let more people fall through, it is not surprising if people are often afraid – of risks as much as of anything else.
Likewise, the progressive undermining of services of general interest – an area in which we are still awaiting a coherent policy from the European Union, and especially from the Commission – often has the unfortunate effect of leading some people to blindly oppose globalisation, or, at any rate, to be suspicious of the common market. Here, too, I want to underline what you said. The European Union is indeed not a supermarket. We should be perfectly capable of combining the objectives of sustainable development with social market economic policies.
My group does not see the desire for greater individuality, more flexibility, more mobility, more – to use a new expression – employability, as an antiquated concept. We will have succeeded when people throughout Europe have an appropriate social security network available to them. My group is firmly convinced that – even if only to avoid unfair competition – this network must also embrace those who have migrated here.
We must therefore affirm our commitment to a European model of capitalism, one that, in the long term, is more efficient, more social, and more humane.
Let me conclude by reiterating my warm welcome, and that of my group, for this paper. It is my belief, though, President Prodi, that, as you said in your speech, we need more conviction in matters of policy, as well as strategies that come to terms with the popular mindset, both in our own countries and among our neighbours.
Do something, Mr President, to ensure that the Commission's documents clearly express the nature of the European project – that it is neither technocratic nor administrative, but political.
You are indeed right, President Prodi, to say that the framework conditions are far from favourable, and they will probably not be anything like favourable in 2004 either. The threat of war in Iraq has opened new fault lines within the European Union and also within the candidate countries. Today, unless there is radical change, our foreign and security policy lies in tatters, and economic developments – particularly where jobs are concerned – have not been as favourable as we expected. This means that we have to take a rather more critical approach to things.
Let me start with what enlargement is intended to achieve. It is indeed the case that we have to see to it that enlargement ends up being a success. To all those who – perhaps with the events of the last few months in mind – have given it as their opinion today that we have to delay enlargement, I would like to put the counter-argument that this would divide and weaken Europe still further. I concede, though, that many of us are disappointed at how little evidence there is among many of our neighbours – and, admittedly, among some of our members – of any emotional and intellectual attachment to the European project. They are right to say that the European Union is not a supermarket, and that it is not a bank either, one from which one just collects money for a few projects. Nor is it an artefact that exists only to be used as a justification when unpleasant but necessary reform measures have to be taken.
Mr President, I believe that we have probably all failed – and not only in relation to the Iraq issue – to highlight the objectives and actual
of the EU as a peace project. President Prodi mentioned the International Criminal Court. Here too, we have neglected to convince the new members of the immense importance to us of, for example, the International Criminal Court, and also of the United Nations, and of how dear these multilateral institutions are to us. That was a mistake and a failure. Perhaps we are paying the price for what was sometimes a too legalistic and narrow view of the
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The Commission is now proposing that we should establish a circle of friends around the enlarged EU, but, President Prodi, we have, over the past few years, not even managed to gain enough friends among the governments of the candidate countries, and we have to concede that the Americans have sometimes had more success in alienating at least the governments of certain countries even before their accession, using lobbyists' money, a closely-woven network of institutions and foundations, some of them funded by the diaspora, and, where necessary, pressure and threats as well.
The Commission also has the task of considering how we can counteract that, and how, above all at the level of culture and society, we can put the European idea across to more of the public, in addition to the united voice of the European Union.
Let me now deal with stability in and around Europe.
Here too, I believe, we have to take a rather broader and deeper view of the individual regions and shape relationships along appropriate lines. The objectives involved are too imprecise and undifferentiated, as Russia needs to be handled in a different way from the Mediterranean, which in turn calls for an approach different from that taken to the Balkan countries, which, by the way, have been potential candidates ever since the Zagreb Summit even though this paper states that they have yet to acquire that status.
We must concede, though, that our visa policy as regards these countries – to which I travel very frequently – is lousy. Business people, scientists, journalists, students – all those who could help to foster friendship with these countries – are often deterred by a visa policy that is highly restrictive, mindlessly unmoveable and bureaucratic, irksome to these people and, above all, to the most important opinion leaders in the countries from which they come. We must of course have a restrictive visa policy, but these social groups could receive flexible treatment under it."@en1
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