Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-298"
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"en.20060315.24.3-298"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the course of the short debate on the Middle East that has been held today in response to current events, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation has also rightly been mentioned. This cooperation is of the utmost importance, not only with regard to the Middle East issue, but also in other contexts. I do not wish to reiterate at this point what I have already said today on behalf of the Council about the events in the Middle East. In the meantime, the Presidency, too, has issued a statement on this. I should now like to turn to the Euromed process itself.
The Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly brings together representatives of the peoples on both sides of the Mediterranean. We expect it to make a particularly important contribution to further calming this situation and to better understanding.
The Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly has given the Barcelona process an urgently needed new dimension and, in particular, increased its legitimacy. Relevant working committees were put to work even at the stage of preparing for the Barcelona Summit in November 2005.
The Committee on Political Affairs, Security and Human Rights of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly debated the problem of the caricatures calmly and in detail at its meeting on the sixth of this month and it, too, pointed to the necessity of increasing dialogue. I am convinced that the plenary session to be held on 26 and 27 March will also be able to provide an appropriate response to the questions that have arisen. The Austrian Presidency is following and supporting the diverse initiatives that are being taken in this regard.
Just today, at the meeting of the Senior Officials Committee for the Barcelona process, the Euromed Committee, the title of a seminar to be held in Vienna was changed at the request of our Mediterranean partners, to take account of their request for religious feelings to be respected.
It is my conviction that there is scope for further improvement in communication between the traditional Euromed committees and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. I hope that, with a little imagination, we are able to achieve further progress on this issue under the Austrian Presidency, to the benefit of all of the Euromed committees and the Partnership as a whole.
Furthermore, particularly in the light of current events, enhanced cooperation could be initiated, for example with the OSCE or even with the ‘alliance of civilisations’ – which, as we know, is a Spanish–Turkish initiative under the auspices of the United Nations. Austria would like to continue its involvement in this wider context, and has already invited the High Level Group on the alliance of civilisations to hold its third meeting in Vienna at the end of May.
The Austrian Presidency follows on the heels of last November’s Summit in Barcelona on the tenth anniversary of the first Barcelona Summit, which adopted a five-year work programme for the Partnership, oriented towards political and economic reforms, and also a Code of Conduct on Countering Terrorism. I believe that these documents and agreements are of the utmost importance.
We and our Mediterranean partners have also agreed to increase investment in education and to tackle together all aspects of legal and illegal immigration. That is another very important issue.
It is now up to the Austrian Presidency to work towards implementing all of these projects. This we shall do willingly, vigorously and with conviction. I should also like to take this opportunity to announce that a meeting of Trade Ministers is to be held in Marrakech on 24 March, and there will be a meeting of Euromed Finance Ministers in Tunis on 25 and 26 June.
We shall also be giving particular support to the Commission in prioritising the media, because we are convinced that the media plays a particularly important role in intercultural understanding. In this connection, the Euromed Seminar on Xenophobia and Racism in the Media that has been planned for a long time is now scheduled to be held in May, during the Austrian Presidency.
As the House has already heard from the Austrian Minister for Foreign Affairs, President of the General Affairs and External Relations Council, the Council has been intensely preoccupied with the issue of the caricatures in recent weeks, including at the informal meeting of Ministers for Foreign Affairs in Salzburg. This issue is another about which I have already had the opportunity to speak to you here. This problem, in particular, has made clear to us that we have to specifically take the route of forward-looking dialogue between the EU and the Islamic world and with Muslim communities in Europe. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership offers an ideal, particularly important forum for the dialogue with Mediterranean countries in this regard. I consider this dialogue to be particularly important at all levels, particularly the direct contact between young people, and I believe that the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership can, and must, indeed play a key role. It was with this aim in view that the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures was established last year. This Foundation has a key role to play, particularly at this time.
The Conclusions of the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council of 27 February 2006 expressly mention the Barcelona process and the Anna Lindh Foundation, along with other multilateral organisations playing a role in this field, a fact that we consider most welcome.
It is now important to take all the available instruments of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and use them to defuse tensions, such as those seen recently. A meeting of leading Euro-Mediterranean officials has already taken place, on 22 February: this enabled a very open exchange of views on the events and gave all the participants the opportunity to propose specific measures.
In essence, there is agreement on the fact that the structures required to tackle this problem are already in place; I do not believe that we should create new ones. The challenge for us now is to make use of all the appropriate opportunities for dialogue to successfully continue the long-standing efforts towards bringing the peoples on both sides of the Mediterranean closer together."@en1
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