Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-07-Speech-2-013"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050607.5.2-013"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, Commissioner, in the fight against terrorism, fear is the worst enemy and advocate. It paralyses the population and affects its sense of security and that is how terrorists win. It also reduces the resistance of the population and causes governments anxiety about suppressive measures, which often infringe fundamental freedoms. Here again terrorists win. The best way, therefore, to limit this fear is for us to be ready, as Europe, both to prevent terrorist attacks and their repercussions and – if a terrorist attack ultimately occurs – to be ready to deal with the repercussions of the attack in the best possible way, in other words by mitigating them both for the population as a whole and for the victims.
Why should we do this together, rather than each of us separately?
Firstly, because terrorism has no borders and our critical infrastructures often have no borders now either. We cannot each deal with an issue which has pan-European repercussions alone.
Secondly, because we have committed to this Europe, not only through economic ties, but also through ties of solidarity. In the case of terrorism in particular, we declared in the new European Constitution on 25 March 2004 that we clearly need to operate together. But what should we do together? In prevention and in the protection of critical infrastructures, I would say to you that it is extremely important for there to be a Commission proposal approved by Parliament for a programme to protect critical infrastructures. The Member States, in cooperation with the infrastructure operators, who are mostly private operators, must each define these critical infrastructures using a harmonised European method. We need to analyse their sensitivity and assess the threats, which means that we need to exchange information on these systems. For example, my country might have information about a possible threat to another country. We need to find solutions for their protection, as well as for an adequate reaction if an attack takes place. At the same time, we need to safeguard confidentiality, so that the owners of these infrastructures can exchange information in advance. In other words, they must be able to warn each other about possible attacks. We need to safeguard financing. We need to safeguard, above all, the protection of fundamental freedoms in this process. The ends do not justify the means. We need to safeguard a recognisable and achievable timetable and independent monitoring by Europe as regards support for this timetable for prescribing infrastructures. We cannot simply shell out money with no timetable.
What can we do for the purpose of crisis management? We need here to create a European civil protection force and safeguard European financing for its movements. This is the biggest cost. You can have a database so that you can coordinate throughout Europe – if a disaster strikes one country, which other countries will help and with what forces – but it costs money. We must have cooperation with non-governmental organisations and local authorities. They are all involved in the event of a disaster, be it a terrorist attack or a natural disaster. All the early-warning systems must be unified in ARGUS. There must be a crisis management, coordination and monitoring and information processing centre in Europe.
We also need, as Europe, to consult the national authorities with experience. I mention this because, with the Olympic Games in Greece in 2004, we organised what was probably the biggest civil protection and infrastructure protection operation in the history of the entire world. The European Commission cannot organise such a large-scale programme without consulting authorities such as these.
What should we not do together? We do not want green, red or orange alerts to the world. We cannot create a climate of panic. In creating a climate of panic, we have created what the terrorists want: the fear I mentioned at the beginning. Nor do we want preventive wars against terrorism. They are either wars against nation states or they are wars against fundamental rights. There is a huge temptation at the moment, in numerous countries around the world, to restrict fundamental rights, allegedly so that we can combat terrorism. Nor do we want to address terrorism solely as a police matter. That is not and should not be the way we combat it. Nor do we want specific terrorists to be demonised, because that way we turn them into heroes, or the victims to be ignored. We have to remember these people. Terrorists want the opposite; they want us to ignore them.
Thank you for listening and thank you to all my honourable friends for adopting this report unanimously in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. I hope that we shall achieve a great deal together in the future."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples