Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-19-Speech-1-159"
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"en.20080519.25.1-159"2
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"Mr President, why are we passing this resolution? Is it a specific remedy to an identified problem? Or are we rather passing it to make ourselves feel better, to feel that we have done our little bit for the peace process?
I ask that question with some regret. I am as big a supporter of the peace process in Northern Ireland as any Member of this Chamber and, indeed, possibly rather more than some. Being on one side Ulster Catholic, on the other, Scots Presbyterian, I have always felt that I have something of a personal stake in power sharing.
But the peace process is not guaranteed by external subventions. On the contrary, there is a danger that this flow of money turns what was an enterprising and thrifty part of the world in to a subsidy junkie, dependent on handouts from elsewhere.
Ask yourselves – I put this quite seriously – when you sign those cheques for those hundreds of millions of euros, whether you actually think you are buying stability and peace in that part of the world, or whether you are not just allowing yourselves to feel slightly better for a few minutes.
The idea that political violence is caused by deprivation is simply not borne out in reality. It is one of the many ideas that derive from Karl Marx and, like a lot of his ideas, it sounds plausible on the page, but it turns out not to be true in reality.
The most subsidised territory in the world, more than anywhere in Africa per capita, is Palestine, which is also one of the most violent.
The truth is that, if we want to support the peace process in Northern Ireland, we have to create a genuine democracy there, where there is a genuine opposition and the ability to change your government. If you do that, we will not need the money."@en1
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