Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-11-25-Speech-3-056"
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"en.20091125.6.3-056"2
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"I am pleased that the first meeting of the Council to be held according to the rules of the Treaty of Lisbon is upon us. I wish Mr Herman Van Rompuy, the first President of the Council, every success. We have quite similar views on how we should act in unity, while having regard to our diversity.
The new institutional arrangements have been adopted in order to bring our decision making closer to citizens and to make it simpler, more democratic, more transparent and more effective. In this respect, we have heard much talk of a powerful Europe. However, the essential question which needs to be asked here is what concept of power we should develop, or on what foundations we can build a powerful Europe. The European Union’s power and success hitherto stem from two key ideas of Europe’s founding fathers: the first being respect for human dignity and the second cooperation. This means that, whilst working to safeguard our interests, we should also consider others, whether that means individuals, peoples, minorities or countries.
Today, we need to ask ourselves once again in all seriousness what it means to respect human dignity and what it means to put the human person at the centre of our concerns. This question is very closely linked to the Stockholm Programme. Many of you here have called attention to the fundamental freedoms and the need to protect them, but we appear to have quite divergent opinions about where human rights actually begin. I hope that we can, at least, agree that human rights begin before a person is granted citizenship of a given country.
I am with those who firmly believe that Article 1 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights ought to apply to human life in its entirety, i.e. from the beginning to the end of a person’s life. In particular, we need to protect those who cannot protect themselves. Before we can protect human freedoms, we must protect human life.
I was pleased to hear so many of you use the words ‘acting together’ and ‘acting in partnership’. Europe’s power lies in its joint efforts, whether we speak of the humanitarian or the intergovernmental method. We might be facing increasing challenges which demand that we show joint political will, but more cooperation does not mean losing our identities."@en1
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