Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-11-17-Speech-4-149"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051117.18.4-149"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, I should like to thank the Commission for the strategy for Africa that they presented on 12 October. Its analysis not only highlights the continent’s potential, but also sets out the way things actually are. Alongside the various positive developments in some African countries – South Africa, of course, but also Botswana, Ghana and, it is to be hoped, in Mauritania too – there is a much longer list of countries suffering from conflicts, whether internally or with their neighbours, widespread poverty, and the illnesses to which reference has already been made: HIV/Aids, malaria, tuberculosis – the great scourges of Africa.
If we ask ourselves why it is that Africa has lagged so far behind other continents, we must, of course, look not only at Africa but also at Europe and the other continents. Looking at Africa, we see that there are in many places governments or elites that obviously rather misunderstood what was happening at the time of decolonisation and started to see themselves as replacements for the former colonists and to treat their own people in the same way as the European colonial powers had evidently done before. They obviously had no conception of what development means or of how independence should be used.
I believe, though, that we have to recognise, if we are honest, that it is Europe and the other continents that bear the greatest responsibility. We need only consider how European powers continue to interfere in Africa, whether directly, using political or military power, or by arranging things so that they can develop their own raw materials for their own companies and retain access to them. This is what I think makes it really necessary that the Commission should, by its approach, more firmly constrain the Member States to pursue a coherent policy towards Africa, which will enable us to abandon these contradictions and secure that continent a better future than it would have otherwise."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples