Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-06-14-Speech-3-071"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20000614.4.3-071"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, I too would like to express my great appreciation for the work of Mrs Lalumière, who has produced an extraordinarily sound document which is also carefully thought out. It has been discussed at length in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and has put us on the right track.
Mr President, a European Union which cannot play a clearly defined role in terms of security and defence creates uncertainty on the world stage. In tandem with the Commission and Council, Parliament would like to contribute to a transparent and convincing policy. After all, the European Union cannot escape its responsibility which is commensurate with its economic and cultural stature. The Christian Democrats hope that the transfer of tasks and competencies from the Western European Union to the European Union can contribute to this clarity. As the President-in-Office of the Council pointed out, this naturally means that the budget of what may be left of the WEU will be drastically reduced but, to our great amazement, he is at the same time quite negative about the idea that the European Union’s budget should increase accordingly in this respect. This seems extremely illogical to me and leads me to believe that this development is not taken altogether seriously.
Mr President, we have emphasised the civil and military aspects of this policy in our resolutions. Both play a major role and the military component should explicitly be embedded in the wider context of the civil component. These are not just pious words, they also have an immediate implication for the way in which this policy is supervised. This is why it is essential that this European Parliament, in which we discuss all kinds of civil affairs with each other all the time, be the place where the military components form part of a wider context in parliamentary supervision too. We know that the civil components will always take priority and the military components will in the first instance be used as a big stick and a last resort. It would therefore be dangerous if this policy were not entirely supervised by us. I also have to say that the nature of the tasks which we have in mind, the Petersberg tasks, is such that here is the ideal place where they can be dealt with. As champions of a Community policy, we are particularly keen for the European Commission’s input, as Mr Patten described it a moment ago, to be at its best. This means therefore that the Council must make this possible and that the personnel and budget required for this should be adequate.
Mr President, we do not want to disconnect these tasks from cooperation with North America. Obviously not. In fact, we are very keen for our security to be undivided. This is why it was with some hesitation that, in another resolution, we in the meantime urged that a position be adopted on America’s inclination to determine its own security unilaterally via the ABM system. We do not want this. We want to cooperate with North America in these matters too, but also – and particularly – with sound backing from the Council."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples