Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-12-Speech-3-108-000"
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"en.20111012.15.3-108-000"2
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"Mr President, on 22 September, the Council rejected the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the Schengen area. What hypocrisy! True, the Netherlands and Finland were the ones who vetoed this application, but the majority of the Member States, starting with France and Germany, seem to share their misgivings. Yet Romania and Bulgaria have now fulfilled the conditions that were imposed on new members in 2008, and they seem to be even better prepared than some of the countries that were accepted without hesitation at the time.
The need for so-called guarantees regarding the fight against corruption and organised crime has been cited. Dare I say it, that is a load of rubbish. What is the sad reality? The political developments in a number of Member States are the only real reason for this refusal. Xenophobia is increasingly undermining Europe, and fears are being played on, because the underlying reason for this refusal is still the fear of a lack of border controls, and it shows what the reality of the Schengen area is.
How does the so-called principle of the free movement of persons work if some European citizens are denied that which is granted to citizens of non-EU countries? The reality of the Schengen area is that it is increasingly becoming a security area in the strictest sense of the word, a security-based police area that allows Europe to turn in on itself. It is a fortress Europe that refuses to take in a few million Tunisians or to reach out to a few dozen Libyan refugees. The Finnish and Dutch governments’ courting of popular opinion and, hence, voters, is broadly supported in many Member States.
The Commission is the guardian of the Treaties. Can it explain to us which new criteria are going to be imposed on Romania and Bulgaria? When will the same principle of reversed qualified majority voting that is applied to economic matters be introduced for matters relating to human rights, justice and freedom? For how long are we going to let the Union drift, and for how long will the interests of the few continue to take precedence over the general interest? Yes, the European Union has a governance problem, but it is not a problem of economic governance; it is a problem of political governance."@en1
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