Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-14-Speech-2-176"
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"en.20020514.9.2-176"2
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"Mr President, what is progress, and what are the perspectives in the Council’s report that we are talking about? If that question were to be encountered with no preparation other than sincere humanitarian sentiment, it might be naively imagined that political efforts should be aimed at deterring and preventing the persecution and political oppression that give rise to the asylum problem, as well as at distributing both wealth and political influence or, in short, democratising the prosperity of the world which is at present concentrated in a few dominant centres, including the EU, that function as oases in a world of social, economic and political misery. That, however, is not the Council’s perspective. On the contrary, because development of the EU’s political and economic power – which necessarily takes place at the expense of the surrounding world – always is, always has been and always will be, politically speaking, the overarching guiding principle of the European Union’s policy. Nor do the perspective and the progress talked of by the Council consist of making every possible effort on behalf of asylum seekers and immigrants. It is not the interests of foreign immigrants, including those of our fellow human beings in distress, that we primarily have in mind. No, the concepts of making progress and adopting perspectives have far more limited meanings. The idea is that immigration policy should be of the greatest possible benefit to ourselves. It is a question of restricting the right of asylum as far as possible, as is stated in the phrase ‘stem the tide of refugees’. It is about using our repressive systems to take measures against something called illegal immigration. This takes place in conjunction with a particularly well-developed legal imagination and by means of surveillance, fingerprinting, the Eurodac regulation, the free exchange of personal information and other measures bordering on the methods used by police states. In short, we are concerned here with developing and consolidating Fortress Europe.
Ironically, all these measures are described as progress. With cruel humour, we even bid these foreigners welcome in what we describe as an area of freedom, security and justice. As a Danish citizen, I am ashamed to have to acknowledge that my country is a pioneer of this whole short-sighted, callous and xenophobic immigration policy. Not only has Danish policy, which in actual fact prevents asylum seekers from being able to exercise their right of asylum, infected the other Member States. Right now, the Danish parliament is also debating a draft law which is striking in the way it clamps down on, for example, asylum procedure so that this can best be characterised as ‘administrative harassment’. What is more, this is being done in cooperation with the xenophobic right-wing Danish People’s Party. I have to admit that the prospects for further so-called progress under the Danish Presidency are frightening."@en1
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