Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-04-Speech-3-297"
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"en.20090204.17.3-297"2
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"Mr President, today in Europe citizens can travel without crossing borders, can vote in a Member State other than their own, can collect their pension and can benefit from social security in any Member State in which they choose to live. Furthermore, police forces co-operate with each other. A public prosecutor in Stockholm can have somebody arrested in Seville by means of a Euro-warrant, without needing to become directly involved in local procedures.
When it comes to reprimanding citizens for their actions, Member States have been willing to concede sovereignty. However, for the protection of these same European citizens outside the European Union, it is as if they have travelled by time machine; they find that time has stood still once they have left the Union.
Outside the Union, we are just 27 States, 27 administrations, 27 flags and 27 consular systems, or in some cases, not even that. In a crisis, a European citizen loses his or her European status. There is no such thing as European citizenship.
The 180 million Europeans who travel around the world find that they can only receive protection if they change themselves back into Germans, Spaniards, Poles or Italians. As Europeans, they do not exist outside the European Union. This is a serious non-fulfilment of the Treaty and, with all due respect, makes the Council’s statement of a few moments ago a piece of science fiction.
All of what the Council said on the supposed implementation of Article 20 of the Treaty, the ‘Lead State’, video conferences and joint centres, is pure science fiction in an emergency. Moreover, as the Commissioner said, some of us have had cause to experience this state of affairs at first hand.
Article 20 of the Treaty is ineffective: there are no protocols for implementation; there are no legal regulations; there is no information for citizens whatsoever; there are no consequences for anyone who disregards the article.
In the best-case scenario, consuls help each other. There is goodwill, as there may have been in the 19th century, as there may have been in Peking in the 1800s. The situation is this: there is collaboration between consuls who dine together rather than an obligation to jointly serve citizens in respect of a provision of European law.
For that reason, the European Commission has the obligation, including before the Treaty of Lisbon enters into effect and obviously afterwards, to implement Article 20, to make European citizens proud of their passport and to make sure that certain officials understand that the 19th century is over and Europe does exist whenever a European citizen is in trouble in New Delhi, Beirut or wherever else."@en1
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