Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-11-Speech-3-146"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050511.16.3-146"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I sometimes wonder what the arguments are for the European Union. They certainly cannot be economic, because we do not live in a world of huge trade tariffs and certainly there is now a global economy. They certainly cannot be democratic, because this Parliament is the only democratic element within the European Union and it is almost as good as useless.
However, if there were one argument for the European Union that would make me change my mind, it would be the argument that the European Union would give us, and would guarantee, peace. However, all of this is based on a series of false assumptions. It was not democratic nation-states that caused the First and Second World Wars. If you look back through history, you find that mature democracies do not go to war with each other.
It is also wrong and quite false to claim that the EU has kept the peace in Europe for the last 50 years. What war has it stopped? Was Portugal going to fight Italy in the mid-1970s? What possible war could it have stopped? If there has been a guarantor of peace over the last 50 years, surely it must be NATO, an example of intergovernmental cooperation.
President Borrell goes on about the reunification of Europe. I wonder sometimes what he is even talking about. The important thing is: will the EU guarantee peace? Does federation guarantee peace? It did not in Yugoslavia or in the USSR and it did not in the United States of America, which, you remember, had one of the bitterest and bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind. If we go on selling this project to the peoples of Europe on a lie, we are more likely than not to stoke up and cause bitter resentments and extreme nationalism. What we must do is tell the peoples of Europe the truth about our ambitions and give them free and fair referendums, otherwise we are heading for disaster."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples