Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-03-Speech-2-045"

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"Mr President, I would like to congratulate our chairman, Mr Hernández Mollar, on the contortions he has had to perform in order to bring this text to plenary. It has not been an easy task. If we are to understand the importance and, above all, the scope of the agreement, we must remember what prompted this initiative. It was not the emotion immediately after September 11 so much as the urgent need, following those tragic events, to create a network to monitor and combat the terrorist organisations operating throughout the world. To quote the resolution adopted by Parliament in December 2001, any agreement on judicial and police cooperation signed by the European Union must respect the Convention on Human Rights. The primary concern – as has already been said – is not to permit the extradition of prisoners who would be liable to face the death penalty in the United States. Now, without prejudice to this principle, I cannot see what other concerns there might be. We feel it would be excessive in any case to presume to make the implementation of this agreement conditional upon an undertaking to do something about the situation at the Guantánamo base. We can demand clarity and transparency from the United States with regard to what is happening at that base, but we must not hinder the progress of an agreement whose effect is much wider than that, which is, in other words, in the interests of world security, not just US security. That is why we voted against the amendment on Guantánamo in committee, seeing it as a separate issue which can, if necessary, be addressed on its own. As for accusing the United States of being a country which fails to respect human rights, all I can say is I would not want to be the council for the prosecution. We must remember that the United States was the first genuine democracy to be created in the world in the history of civilisation. My opinion is that some views are to be considered to be decidedly partisan. The agreement is a major step forward in combating not just terrorism but financial crime, the drug trafficking multinationals, money laundering, cyber crime and the trafficking of human beings too. These may appear to be unrelated issues, but they are, in actual fact, linked by the urgent need for resolute, timely, unconditional action."@en1

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