Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-01-14-Speech-3-014"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20090114.3.3-014"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, on behalf of my group I welcome the President-in-Office. We wish you success, President-in-Office.
And if you want peace in the Middle East, why allow Europe to be ridiculed by so many different peace missions?
As events unfold in Gaza, it becomes harder for many of us to remain detached. This House will never unite around a common position if we seek to apportion blame precisely, but fault can be found on both sides, violence denounced, and an immediate ceasefire sought.
There is no excuse for Hamas rocket attacks, but nor for the use of dense inert metal explosives to maim civilians.
The tag line for your Presidency is ‘Europe without Borders’. Perhaps its author had in mind that old Czech proverb: ‘Protect yourself not by fences but by your friends’.
President-in-Office, we, your fellow Europeans, are your friends. Your country’s President compared the European Union to the Soviet Union. Well, we do not bug private discussions, as he did to Members of this House.
He who wishes to remain on the margin is free to do so. But this is a Union of friends – friends, equals and partners.
Your presidency’s aims are bold. We support them. Stick to them, and we will stick by you.
A great Czech once said: ‘I am no longer a rookie: goals are expected of me; scoring is my job.’ Well, what was true for Milan Baroš is also true for you and your ministers. Your work programme outlines those goals.
On the economy, you have said that barriers to the market – internal and external – must come down, and that Europe’s answer to recession must not be Keynesian spending alone, but that we must strive for fairer competition, trade liberalisation, and freer movement of people and goods across national boundaries.
These are hard times for Europe’s citizens. Your recipe will be contested, but not by Liberals and Democrats. For the experience of the Czech Republic – and so many others – proves the power of markets in lifting people out of poverty.
On energy, you are right to pursue the aims of the Strategic Energy Review, but the Review and our climate change targets should not be a ceiling to our ambitions, rather a springboard to greater and greener heights, to force the pace on Europe’s switch from fossil fuels to renewables and put an end to our umbilical energy dependence.
Currently, our monitors are blocked from Ukrainian dispatch centres. Russia claims it cannot export gas because Ukraine will not transport it, and Ukraine claims it has no gas to export because the Russians have switched the transit route. Meanwhile, industry across eastern and central Europe is suffering, some people are freezing in their homes, and there are moves to reopen nuclear reactors condemned as unsafe by our Union.
That is not a functioning energy market. It is the plot of a Marx Brothers’ film:
or, rather, twelve nights and counting. So stop talking about the internal market in energy and the development of renewals: use your presidency’s powers to mobilise the necessary investment.
On the EU in the world, we welcome your presidency’s ambitions. Europe should play a leading role in resolving conflicts, supporting development and promoting human rights.
But, if you truly seek to widen the EU’s capacity to act, why have you delayed yet again ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon? If you want to prevent weapons proliferation, why are you building a ballistic missile defence system on European soil?"@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"A Night in the Cold"1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples