Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-29-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20070329.5.4-014"2
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".
Mr President, let me start with a brief remark to Mr Daul. We, too, want Croatia to be able to take part in the 2009 European elections, but the fundamental precondition for that – one on which I believe we are still in agreement this morning, having been so yesterday afternoon – is that the EU should be reformed in the way in which it has to be if there are to be any more accessions at all. What that means is that those who want Croatia to be able to accede in 2009 and thus take part in the European elections must tell Messrs Kaczyński and Klaus that they had better give way in the constitutional debate, or else it simply is not going to happen. I hope that is still how we see the situation this morning.
Many thanks, Mr Solana, our High Representative, for setting out so comprehensively the role played by the European Union in international politics. Speaking on behalf of our group, there are two points I should like to pick up on and assure you of our complete solidarity and support. First of all, you commented on the British soldiers who are currently in Iranian captivity, and I am grateful to you for your clear expression of solidarity. What I want to say – speaking on behalf of my group – to Iran is that the value of any and every verbal commitment to peacemaking, however delivered, can be measured by whether or not these soldiers are set free. Demonstrating your willingness to take part in constructive international policy dialogue will take no time at all.
You also pointed out that the EU is not a defence union, but an alliance that tries, in the first instance, to resolve international conflicts through dialogue. One foreign policy that we can devise for ourselves, one that gives us a sense of identity, is the one that sees the prioritisation of civil and diplomatic – as opposed to military – solutions as the ‘European model’. Your explicit commitment to it shows that your approach really is deserving of support, from my own group at any rate.
It also means, however, that, if there has to be dialogue, and if dialogue takes precedence over all else, there has to be dialogue with everyone, and that is why I was really pleased to hear you tell this House that we cannot reject the possibility of dialogue with the new government of national unity in Palestine, whose finance minister and foreign minister you mentioned by name, and with whom we have been carrying on talks for years. How, then, could we now declare ourselves unwilling to talk to them on the grounds that they belong to a government which includes representatives of Hamas? We are most obliged to you for being so forthright about this. Our group will be sending a delegation to Palestine, which will be talking to these partners in dialogue among others.
You made reference to a whole array of things. You reported on Riyadh, you talked about the Kosovo problem, about the situation in the Balkans, about Iran, Ukraine, and the Darfur crisis. You described a veritable plethora of disturbing developments with which we in the European Union have something to do. While listening to you attentively, Mr Solana, I asked myself: which of these problems will actually be solved by installing an anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic? Not one of them!
A whole lot of things, though, that cause problems have to do with the way in which we – by which I mean the Western world – can find it in ourselves to spend billions on anything except the removal of the causes of these conflicts, which are, as ever, poverty, hunger, epidemics, disease, and under-development. We have money for anything, and, according to what I read this morning, the American President is offering his Russian counterpart a dialogue; I think that is marvellous. That is something after our own heart, but, instead of talking about where they are each going to put their anti-missile systems, they should talk about the need not to have them put anywhere at all, for it is just as worthy of condemnation to put in place an anti-missile system that has little purpose as it is to fail to condemn and outlaw Russian cluster bombs.
Impressive though your description of your work was, Mr High Representative, the one thing that is clear to us is that any and every anti-missile system, no matter how it is set up, be it bilaterally, under the auspices of NATO, under the
of the European Union, or however else, has no effect other than to unleash a new spiral of competitive rearmament that costs money – the money that is lacking to resolve the conflicts that you have described."@en1
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