Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-25-Speech-3-027"
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"en.20061025.4.3-027"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin with an observation about the Russian President Mr Putin, who featured prominently in Mr Vanhanen’s speech and, Mr President of the Commission, in your own.
So much for the announcements. Outstanding! Except for the fact that – and this applies not only to you, least of all, indeed, to you, Mr President of the Commission, you who in fact make the right proposals, and who also seek to work towards the goals you announce – you in the Council, you, Mr Vanhanen, and the other Heads of State or Government, you must all put into practice what you have described in relation to energy policy, and that includes implementing it in your national energy plans.
Moreover, I have to tell the House that, if you do not wish to be dependent on Russian energy, you must put an end to the waste of energy in Europe, in the US and in the industrialised nations of the world. If you want to limit climatic disasters, you must reduce CO2 emissions, and that will be accomplished, not by using natural gas from Russia, but rather through greater energy efficiency, through greater use of renewable energy, through power stations that make use of Combined Heat and Power (CHP) and through power plants with the highest level of efficiency. To do this, I might add, we will need more technology, and this is where we come full circle, back to the Lisbon process, for, if we want new technology, we need to invest in the minds of our people, in the universities.
All that is true. It is just that we debate this time and again from scratch. Time and again, the same old things once more. Time and again, the same statements, and time and again, the same speech from me. This speech is not new either. I have already made it in modified form on numerous occasions. I have no desire to bore myself – not even with my own speeches. So, I beg you, let the announcements by the Commission and the Council at long last be backed up by actions.
The evening spent with him must have been a memorable one indeed. From the reports I hear, and from what I read, the meeting with President Putin was quite something. It is good, I feel, that Mr Putin is so frank. I have no problems with this and nor, for what it is worth, does my group. I would like, first of all, to say that when Mr Putin comments on the speech made by the President of this House, Mr Borrell Fontelles, he honours us. It shows that he has at least been listening. We never know, of course, if everyone is listening, but it does appear that Mr Putin has been.
We do, however, reject comments that Mr Putin has made in relation to the speech where these are of an offensive nature, as the President of this House speaks for all its Members, and we thank him for what he said.
Secondly, I would like to say that, yes, it is indeed a good thing for Mr Putin to speak about what he thinks of Italy. It is indeed a good thing for Mr Putin to speak about what he finds worthy of criticism in Spain. I believe these to be good things because European society is an open one. In our society anyone can criticise anything. This makes our society distinctly different from Russian society, where not everyone can voice criticisms of anything.
It is therefore fruitful to have an open exchange of opinions with the Russian President. For that reason, we are also stating that what is happening in Chechnya is not right and that it must be condemned when human rights are breached and when people are degraded. I would also mention that Russian people too, including soldiers of the Russian army, are treated dishonourably there. It is, of course, completely obvious – we will be pointing this out in the resolution on the death of Anna Politkovskaya – that it is not possible to describe today’s Russia, where journalists have to fear for their lives if they air grievances about their country, as a functioning democracy. That much is completely obvious.
Thus, the open exchange of opinions on our part with Mr Putin and with all the Russians, and Russian politicians, that we come across is a part of our understanding of what it means to deal with people as partners. We do, after all, criticise what goes on in the United States. We reserve the right to criticise what goes on elsewhere in the world just as we ourselves may be subject to criticism.
I am, then, also critical of the speeches made by Prime Minister Vanhanen and the President of the Commission, in which they promised many fine things. It all sounded so wonderful. You are, of course, aware of that, as I say it in every speech I make in relation to your remarks. Excellent! Superb! Once everything that you have described to us is implemented Europe really will be an El Dorado for technology, an El Dorado for training and qualification. We will be the knowledge-based society of the 21st, nay the 22nd, century. Superb! Onwards, ever onwards! I have to tell you, though, gentlemen, that the point will come at which you will have to deliver the goods!"@en1
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