Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-04-13-Speech-3-256"
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"en.20050413.20.3-256"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the aim of our annual report is to set out a proposal regarding the ways in which cooperation between the Council and Parliament, or between the Commission and Parliament, could be altered and improved. This is particularly important in view of the fact that we are currently in the first year of a new parliamentary term.
Multilateral approaches, as adopted in our relations with the United States, should be complemented by a partnership that follows clearly defined objectives and is aimed at setting up a transatlantic marketplace by 2015. I should like to make it quite clear to those Members who tabled amendments that I support the proposals by various groups to call for the European Union to be given a seat in the Security Council, and I say so speaking particularly as a German.
We are well aware that the main responsibility for the foreign, security and defence policy rests with the executive. Parliament’s role in this respect is largely confined to the exercising of control, although its budgetary powers allow it to exert a certain amount of influence. Particularly as far as the latter are concerned, it would be useful if the Commission and the Council could avoid presenting Parliament with
in the future, and involve it at an earlier stage of proceedings. It should not be the case that Parliament is only informed after the event; instead, it should be involved in the planning and development of strategies, in order to ensure that consideration is given to its wishes. This would then make matters simpler for all parties concerned, as we would already have identified an approach that would allow us to make good progress.
This House believes that it is important for the same priorities to apply in foreign policy as have done to date. There is an old saying that war is the failure of politics, and it is true that war should always be a last resort. This is why we believe that it is essential to strengthen the preventive aspect of our foreign policy, and to ensure that our prevention and crisis management capabilities are greatly extended. This is the same line as that followed by the European Union as a whole, as prevention is clearly identified as an objective in the draft Constitution. We should make our position on this matter quite clear, not only to gain public support, but also to develop strategic positions.
This leads us to very practical considerations regarding the question of where our priorities should lie. The answer must be the Middle East conflict, as a result of which we are cooperating more closely with the Americans, the Russians and the UN within the Quartet. The aim of this cooperation is not only to provide support to the Palestinians and Israelis and to bring about peace, but also to gain better control over cover-up activities for terrorism in the broadest sense, which is in fact our second main priority.
The solidarity provisions in the Constitutional Treaty relating to mutual assistance are also of major importance in this respect, and we must ask ourselves how the European Union can use a combination of new instruments to respond to external and internal security threats, and how we can make further progress in this field. We must ensure that priority is given to matters relating to the non-proliferation of atomic weapons, for example in Iran and North Korea, if we are to succeed in gaining any credibility at all where this issue is concerned.
We must also ensure, however, that greater space is given to this instrument in the neighbourhood policy of the European Union, which is after all a security concept in itself, as it creates links between countries in order to ensure that they never wage war against each other again. At the same time, we must ensure that we move on from the traditional model of neighbourhood policy that we have pursued in recent years.
The European Union’s capacity to act also depends on its borders, and so we must ensure that neighbouring countries, which we wish to have on our side and are important to us, and which we wish to help in developing and stabilising democracy, are offered an alternative to full membership, whether this be called a European Economic Area Plus or given another name.
We must find a multilateral starting point of this kind in order to ensure that we can provide countries such as Ukraine with an answer now, and not in 15 or 20 years’ time, when they ask us how they can improve. We hope that the Council and the Commission will be more imaginative in this respect, and not rely on tried and tested political methods, as they frequently have in the past. The Commissioner is in fact adopting a new approach by seeking to find such a starting point.
There are two final issues I should like to touch upon. I am delighted that the vast majority of Members are in favour of upholding the arms embargo against China until the country improves its human rights record and stops adopting laws that legitimise war. We must reach an agreement on this issue before transatlantic relations are put at risk."@en1
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