Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-11-18-Speech-4-048"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20041118.6.4-048"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Buttiglione circus has closed its doors, and pro-European order will prevail henceforth in Strasbourg. Mr Buttiglione, a free man of Catholic faith, has been replaced by Mr Frattini, a model freemason. Mrs Udre, a Latvian accused of being a Eurosceptic by one of her fellow citizens, has also been replaced. Yet neither Mr Kovács, the former Stalinist found by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy to be entirely incompetent, nor Mrs Fischer Boel and Mrs Kroes, who have attracted criticism over potential conflicts of interest, have been replaced.
It appears to me that a moral can be drawn from the Buttiglione affair, and that this affair has claimed three victims. The moral is that to be a European Commissioner, one must be Euro-compatible, that is to say politically, mentally and even religiously correct, as well as being an aficionado of tolerance, of the principle of non-discrimination and, above all, of human rights, the latter-day bible of right-thinking people. Any kind of deviation will from now on be harshly punished.
Let us now turn to the victims, the first of which is the future European Constitution. The European Parliament has flouted both Article II-70, on freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and Article II-71, on freedom of expression and opinion, and in some ways Mr Buttiglione is the first secular martyr of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The second victim is Italy, which gave in to the European Parliament when the latter forced Mr Berlusconi to replace the Commissioner he had appointed, and whose competence and honesty had not been challenged by anyone before his hearing. The third and final victim is the European Commission and its President, Mr Barroso, as both have emerged weakened from this trial of strength with Parliament. No, Mr Barroso, you were neither held hostage to the extreme right nor were you its victim, as you wrongly claimed; you fell victim to your own errors of judgment. You realised a little too late that we were heading for a confrontation, and that this House intended to make you capitulate in order to reaffirm its authority
the Council and the Commission.
As for us European right-wingers, proud of our beliefs and relying on the support of the people, we will defend our fellow citizens from both the European super-state and the accession of Turkey by voting against the investiture of your Commission. I should like to make one final point. Mr President, you yourself have admitted that you interfered in French affairs by lending the Portuguese Government’s support to Mr Chirac during the 2002 presidential elections. Mr Chirac, who everyone knows is unfamiliar with both Europe’s geography and its history, recently said that we are all children of Byzantium. It is hard to think of a more sinister omen, since the children of Byzantium, busy discussing the sex of angels with their parents and their councillors, were overwhelmed by the Islamic army of Sultan Mehmet II on 29 May 1453 after a month-and-a-half-long siege. In a symbolic and barbaric gesture, the Sultan dipped his hand in the blood of the dead Christians and daubed this blood on the wall of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which became and has remained Istanbul’s main mosque."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples