Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-10-Speech-2-219"
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"en.20050510.25.2-219"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has today adopted a draft communication, drawn up by me, consisting of a plan of action to implement and put into practice the priorities of the Hague programme to make Europe an area of freedom, security and justice.
I am, of course, familiar with the report drawn up by the chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Cavada, after a hearing and a thorough debate precisely on our priorities regarding security, justice and freedom. As you will see, the document takes up many of those recommendations and suggestions. I strongly hope and trust that on this occasion, in the course of Parliament’s work, you will be able to find some agreement with the Commission’s strategy in terms of lines of action.
I shall conclude by saying that of course we are counting on Parliament’s support. We are counting on it because freedom, justice and security are among people’s fundamental needs, because they are pillars of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights and of the Constitutional Treaty in the European Union, and also because they are subjects that have a strong political dimension rather than a bureaucratic one. That is why the European Parliament, as a political player, will be able to make contributions, proposals and suggestions for additions that we shall certainly take into account.
The communication contains a first draft of the political objectives and an annex indicating the main practical measures, together with dates by which each initiative must be adopted. We have prepared a programme comprising 84 initiatives for the whole term of the Commission’s mandate: 32 of these 84 measures will be implemented by the end of 2005, which will be the most important year for the action plan to take off. We believe that with this programme we have launched a second stage in Europe’s freedom, security and justice policy.
First of all, we shall be equipping ourselves with the means to organise and plan future actions more effectively. We are aware, of course, that there may always be some unpredictability in matters of security due to external events, but it is important to work to a strategic plan and to avoid emergency measures. These are areas – the security area as well as those of justice and freedom – where we should not be thinking in terms of individual, isolated measures, but instead we should be thinking in terms of a European approach that responds to the people’s demands and can make a difference, compared to the individual actions of Member States.
Another aspect of our work will be to monitor the way the Member States implement individual initiatives. We have prepared a specific reference guide, a chapter of the communication concerning the preparation of a yearly report – a kind of management chart. It would, in fact, be a comparative outline of the measures that are adopted at national level to implement and comply with the orientations given in the document. I believe that such a report is important, and the first one will be issued in December this year, six months after the Commission’s adoption of the action plan.
The three major objectives that the Commission intends to pursue are, first of all, the promotion and protection of people’s fundamental rights. We see that as a core aspect of European citizenship, one that we must fulfil organically but which requires that Europe should, both internally and externally in its international actions, be a promoter and not just a passive defender of people’s fundamental rights and freedoms.
That aspect is clearly linked to the high-priority need for security, as the people of Europe are demanding. Security means decisive action against terrorism and organised crime, with particular regard for the victims of crime. We shall be giving this aspect special attention, but, as I have already pointed out, our measures to strengthen security must not come at the expense of everyone’s freedoms and fundamental rights. The guiding principles will be more security, more respect and more protection, as well as the promotion of individual freedoms.
An important chapter is devoted to various aspects of solidarity. Solidarity means considering issues such as immigration at a European level and no longer at a national level. We have to separate the aspect of illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings, against which we must fight hard, from the aspect of admission rules for legal immigrants, those who are entitled to have proper access to social services – that means a policy of integration based on legality and obeying the law. In this area, solidarity clearly also means striking a balance between our fellow citizens’ right to be given guarantees against people traffickers and protecting the victims of people traffickers, in other words the immigrants or asylum seekers themselves.
This point is linked to the one on the European area of justice. I am, of course, summarising these aspects as much as I can, but you will find the details in the communication: civil justice and criminal justice. We cannot just think about criminal justice, but rather we must emphasise the fact that civil justice and the harmonisation of rules, or at least the solution of common problems, can help the people of Europe with serious problems in their everyday lives. I am thinking of certain points of family law, such as inheritance among people of different nationalities, or the execution of orders for payment where the creditor is from one country and the debtor from another: in civil law, too, we can find solutions that improve or resolve certain problems in people’s everyday lives.
All that certainly requires a commitment by the three European institutional players: Parliament, the Council and the Commission. It is our intention to work hard to strengthen this action, to strengthen this interinstitutional partnership, and we shall make every effort to expand the areas of codecision with Parliament wherever possible. In this action plan we have taken account of many points that Parliament had highlighted, and I shall mention just one of them: the greater role of the European Union Court of Justice in certain areas. We found the Council’s reaction somewhat problematic at times, but equally we feel committed to continue working until all three institutional players agree on how to put this plan’s lines of action into practice."@en1
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