Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-10-13-Speech-3-027"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20041013.3.3-027"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, to evaluate in three minutes the work done over five years by the Commission is rather like trying to square the circle. That is why I shall content myself with identifying a few salient features that, in our view, illustrate broad trends that have characterised, and still characterise, the action of the EU’s executive and the EU in general.
Let me be clear that I am not putting a question mark over individuals. I am calling a policy into question. Over and above the political and national divisions, the present Commission embraces some brilliant personalities, from Mr Lamy to Mr Patten. It is the direction followed that is problematic.
The first example of this is the Lisbon agenda. Four years after the adoption of what the European Council called a new strategic objective for the decade, where are we? One of the proclaimed ambitions, I would point out, was to achieve full employment, whereas the figures of the Commission itself now indicate that, for the first time in ten years, we are destroying more jobs than we are creating. The other ambition was to construct the world’s most dynamic knowledge economy, whereas the Commission acknowledges a general decline in investment in key areas such as research, education and training. One figure, quoted by the Commission, really makes one shudder: more than 17% of Europe’s 15 year-olds lack the minimum reading, writing and arithmetical skills required. One might therefore have expected, at the very least, to see some initial questions asked and some tentative doubt raised as to the relevance of the headlong flight into liberalism of recent years, of which these failures might be the price. No, the question is never asked. During the crisis, the liberal wave rolls on and grows larger.
The second example is the 1999 Tampere programme, in particular European policy on asylum and migration. Has what human rights militants called Fortress Europe led to satisfactory results in terms of the much-touted control of migration flows? No, the repeated dramas along the Sicilian coast are testimony to the fact. Is there, therefore, a resolve to tackle the problems from the other end, that is to say by bringing about a shift in the pitiless rules of the world economy in an attempt to curb, at source, these migrations motivated by the need to survive? Emphatically, no. Heedless of the ethical, humanitarian and legal problems, the Commission is launching pilot projects aimed at establishing detention centres on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, intended for refugees intercepted at sea. What will be the next stage?
The last example is transatlantic relations. In the wake of 9/11, the idea had taken root that our expression of solidarity with the American people did not have to mean a docile acceptance of its leaders’ ideas on international security. ‘Allied but not aligned’ was the message. That did not prevent the Commission from declaring to President Bush at the transatlantic summit of June 2003 – in other words, after the start of the war in Iraq – that when Europe and the United States are united, no enemy can stand up to us. The fact is, history has not since borne out that bold synopsis. What public lesson has, however, been drawn from this turn of events? There’s the rub, Mr President. Alternative options are never discussed. It is, as they say, business as usual. It is time to breathe some spirit of criticism into our institutions, contradiction being an engine of progress."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples