Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-30-Speech-3-096"
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"en.20080130.18.3-096"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we in Europe talk of anti-missile defence, the discussion normally revolves around the United States’ planned installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. Many people are unaware that these are merely extensions to an existing system designed to protect the United States of America. We in the European Parliament, however, must focus first and foremost on its implications for the security of the continent of Europe. As we know, the United States has already spent more than 100 billion dollars on its anti-missile defence system and is investing a further ten billion a year in the continuing development of the system. Yet the United States is much further away from potential sources of danger than we are in Europe. The present situation is rather like Luxembourg spending money to build dykes but the Netherlands seeing no need to do likewise.
We must ask ourselves whether a threat actually exists and, if so, whether we need to respond to it. The debate we have just heard with Mr Solana shows that the situation in Iran remains a source of concern. We are also aware of the threat that could emanate from the unstable situation in Pakistan.
We in the Subcommittee on Security and Defence have engaged in intensive dialogue with representatives of the United States, including Lieutenant General Henry Obering, Director of the Missile Defense Agency. It emerged clearly from these talks that the US system would be able, in theory, to protect part of Europe but not the whole continent. In particular, it could not protect Cyprus, Malta, parts of Greece, Romania, Bulgaria or southern Italy. From a European point of view, however, we cannot tolerate a division of our continent into areas with differing degrees of security. Accordingly, we must jointly define our common European security interests in this context.
The present appraisal reminds us that there is currently no forum in which this matter is being discussed and in which these common European security interests are being defined. This is clearly another area where very close coordination with Russia is needed.
We expect NATO’s Bucharest summit in April to present proposals for a joint system, and we expect these proposals to take due account of our specific European security interests."@en1
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