Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-31-Speech-3-201"
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"en.20040331.6.3-201"2
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"Mr President, it is true that this report on the situation as regards fundamental rights in the European Union is in danger of becoming almost a routine appointment. So as not to repeat what has already been said on other occasions or by other Members, I shall therefore focus my speech on three topics in particular. The first, inevitably, is the family. Speaking not only for myself but also on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I strongly reject paragraphs 102 and 103, which yet again call repeatedly for legal recognition of cohabiting couples, even same-sex ones. We also reject Amendment No 157, which adds to this demand the right even to be able to adopt children normally. It seems that some people will never learn the old lesson that on this issue it is pointless to attempt to go against the European Treaty, which clearly attributes to the Member States the power, the competence and the sovereignty to decide on this sensitive issue themselves.
A second topic that I should like to address is that of press freedom and pluralism, which only yesterday was the subject of a heated debate in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. Once again, in language quite unsuitable for this House, paragraph 63 says that in Italy the notion of pluralism is trampled underfoot with the greatest cynicism. Come on, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, that is a sentence for an electoral manifesto, not for a debate in the European Parliament! We therefore strongly reject Amendments Nos 84, 85 and 86, which reiterate this misunderstanding and in the end put Italy in the firing line all by itself, as if all media problems were concentrated in our country.
They start, it is true, with assumptions we can all share, such as the criteria of pluralism, freedom and access to the press for all, but then they reach conclusions so restricted to the individual case of Italy that they end up discrediting all their noble assumptions as well. You just have to read the report by Reporters Without Borders, who certainly did not get together within the Italian Prime Minister’s organisation but are, as you know, an organisation of left-wing journalists. They carried out some research in Italy in April 2003, which they later published, in which they arrive at very different conclusions from those that characterise yesterday’s unbelievable report from the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, with its even more unbelievable amendments. For example, there is a conflict of interests in Italy, it is true, but it is being resolved these days – I might say right now as we speak – in the Italian Parliament, the only forum where this issue can be discussed seriously. A reform bill is on the point of being passed, a reform that the Italian left never had the courage or even the ability to propose during their seven years in government.
Reporters Without Borders say that the press in Italy – I am quoting them directly: I am not making this up – is ‘free and pluralistic, although weakened by the hegemony of television’. In contrast to what happened yesterday in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, they do not talk about censorship or media tyranny. On the political orientation of television news broadcasts, both public and private, they write that they are ‘substantially balanced’; the only explicit criticism is the distancing from the screen of public figures like Mr Biagi, Mr Santoro and Mr Luttazzi, whom – I assure you if you do not know them – nobody in Italy misses, except perhaps the political bosses who pay them.
A final word, this time, after so many negatives, to recommend the adoption of Amendment No 199, tabled by Mr Borghezio and myself, on the compensation due to Italian military detainees for the forced labour they did in Germany between 1943 and 1945. Only the Italians have not been compensated. We call on Germany to compensate those Italian citizens who worked hard against their will in factories and labour camps, even though it is now really very late. I should like to tell Mr Schroeder to do so quickly, because the youngest of them is 80 years old, and 10% of them die each year that passes."@en1
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