Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-12-12-Speech-1-061"
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"en.20051212.13.1-061"2
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".
Whether or not Mr Gollnisch holds on to his immunity is a delicate subject. I decided not to shirk my responsibilities in order to tell Mr Gollnisch, publicly and quite frankly, why I will not defend his immunity.
There is a strong temptation to express an opinion about the content of the remarks attributed to the
member. There is a strong temptation to want only to remember the martyrdom of the Jewish people, by dismissing the only debate worth having, that of the conditions governing the application of parliamentary immunity. There is a strong temptation to reject the defence of Mr Gollnisch’s immunity by regarding him solely as the representative of an ideology which nearly all of this Assembly rejects and in opposition to which the European project was conceived on the basis of the European idea.
Conversely, there may well be a strong temptation to call for this defence of immunity as part of a corporatist reflex to make sure that no remarks can be held against any one of us. I call on you not to give in to these temptations and not to transform a technical debate into a debate belonging to historians. Our Assembly is not a court.
Mrs Wallis’ report is balanced. She reminds us that immunity is not designed to protect Members of the European Parliament, but to protect the integrity of the European Parliament, through its representatives, and to give them the independence with which to carry out their tasks.
There is no doubt that, in Lyon, in the heart of the university where he teaches, far from his constituency in north-east France, Mr Gollnisch was not speaking as a Member of the European Parliament. Mr Gollnisch lives dangerously, constantly on the razor’s edge. This form of political life is, in reality, peculiar to the extreme right-wing in France and Germany. Mr Gollnisch is far too cultivated and intelligent not to have realised that his remarks were in danger of being condemned by French law. If he must rush headlong into a legal tussle in order to remain faithful to what he believes is right, then it is advisable that he does not drag our Parliamentary institution into the matter by involving it in a debate in which it does not belong.
The request for defence of immunity, which was put together with your consent, Mr Gollnisch, is halfway between a call for help with no legal basis, given that this procedure does not in any way threaten to prevent you from carrying out your duties, and, as I see it, a baffling attempt to shirk your responsibilities, just as though you were at last overcome with panic at the thought of what you knowingly triggered off and clearly no longer control.
I feel no hatred for you, any more than I wish to support you, as a Member of the European Parliament, in this ordeal that you knowingly brought about. It is down to you, on your own, to accept the consequences. It is not perhaps too late for you to change and to make peace with France, Europe and our painful past. I hope that you succeed in doing this. The European Parliament cannot do it for you …"@en1
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