Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-07-22-Speech-4-039"
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"en.20040722.1.4-039"2
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"Madam President, firstly, I should like to wish Mr Barroso good luck in the forthcoming vote and with the work on creating an agenda for the reform of Europe. I believe it may be said that we now have a better Europe than ever, thanks to the European Union. That development towards freedom, democracy and states governed by the rule of law that we have been able to see in so many countries in recent decades could not have happened without the European Union. I think it important to say that today, because there are many who have maintained the opposite when it comes to Europe’s ability to contribute to freedom and peace.
The challenge now is also to make the European Union better. It is about creating a momentum for competition and growth and creating a clear political will. One of the first and most important tasks for the President of the Commission is to ensure that no one experiences the economic growth in the new Member States as a threat to the old Member States. On the contrary, the development of the former is an asset for us all and will help bring vitality to the European economy. This emphasises both the need for, and the possibility of, an agenda of reform in which, I believe, the President of the Commission, together with other political leaders, must be courageous enough to dare to confront the political, economic and structural problems we have in Europe. The task is not to prevent change through regulations but to create an openness to the new that will give us new strength and new ideas in Europe. In that respect, it is important for the Lisbon process to enter a new phase because, not having led to the required changes, it has not worked. Both the Member States and the European Union must now do something that will take Europe forwards.
I want to address another matter: that of the Middle East and the European Union’s foreign policy. If the EU cannot contribute to freedom and democracy in the dictatorships of the Arab world, then we are also undermining the chances for freedom and peace of both Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinian Authority’s collapse into terrorism, lawlessness and corruption, which we have been able to follow in recent days, is an expression of the fact that the surrounding world has not been sufficiently vocal in asserting the Palestinian people’s right to representatives who respect the rules of democracy and of societies based on law, – rules relating, for example, to the lives and worth of other people. This must be an important task for the European Union.
Finally, I want to state that we are today seeing genocide taking place in the Darfur region of Sudan. A crucial test for the European Union will be that of creating sufficient political capability and will to do something about this. Too many times have we said that such things must not happen again. Now, they are, in fact, happening again. Let us now make sure we acquire the power to arrest this trend."@en1
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