Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-26-Speech-3-064"

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"en.20030326.5.3-064"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of Iraq seems to have divided the world into two opposing camps. However, the peace demonstrators have stood up in the whole of Europe and throughout the world in order to protest against the strongest military power in the world. Without the backing of the UN Security Council, the United States has attacked Iraq, but we now know that their battle plans had been ready for a long time. We believed that a peaceful solution was possible in Iraq, thanks to the intervention of the inspectors, but the decision had already been taken. All wars in the Middle East have always ended in disaster. Why, then, are we incapable of learning the lessons of history? Our construction of Europe is based on right, rather than might. Yes, but we cannot deny that the European Union is experiencing a real crisis. What is this right that we are talking about? How can we forget Article 11 of the Maastricht Treaty, which compels all Member States to define and implement a common security policy in line with the United Nations Charter? The UN Charter has been flouted. Article 2 of that Charter asks all States to refrain from threatening the territorial or political integrity of any other State or to use force against that integrity. What has happened to our compliance with that article? Does this mean that there is no longer any law, any treaty, or any charter which is able to resist the law of the strongest power? That is a frightening thought. It would be a defeat for democracy, and we do not accept it. This war is a disaster from the moral viewpoint. All the great principles of our civilisation cannot be trampled underfoot in this way. What price will we have to pay for this inability to learn lessons from the past and for the fact that we have delayed too long in building a political Europe that would be capable of facing up to the United States? It is time for us to react if we want a strong and independent Europe. It is time for us to put in place a common defence policy, and it will be necessary for us to provide ourselves with the resources to do so. We need to move, to make the Convention a success and to make our future together a success too."@en1

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