Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-018"
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"en.20020612.1.3-018"2
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"Mr President, I would like to focus on the first theme introduced by President Prodi of better regulation and better organisation. While, in private enterprises, better organisation might be seen as a decisive factor for the life or future of the company, I feel that the priority for a democratic institution should not be to have leaner, more transparent, more effective procedures but simply to have more democratic procedures. I am not saying we do not need lean, transparent, effective procedures too but that there is a problem of priorities.
I feel that expressions such as ‘improve and simplify legislation’, ‘give practical substance to the concept of citizenship’, ‘improving legislative technique’ and ‘working faster and better’ are liable to be meaningless and even to serve as fig leaves covering up the lack of democracy in the European Union’s legislative and decision-making process.
I feel that Parliament must demand one thing and one thing alone: that the Council of Ministers cease to be the only legislative body of so-called democratic institutions in the world to meet in secret. This is the crucial thing! Not just Parliament but the European citizen too is in the dark about the Council’s legislative process. If this is conceded, it will be a step forwards; if it is not, none of the rest – not even more effectiveness or better organisation – will make any difference to the European Union’s decision-making process.
Another issue I would like to focus on is the foreign and internal policy aspects of the anti-terrorism alliance.
Here, too, I believe that the European institutions have been disregarding the guiding principles of democracy and the rule of law for too long in the name of combating terrorism. We all agree on the need for a balance between these two requirements, but I feel that a sufficient balance has not yet been found. I will mention one place, Chechnya, by way of example. As regards Chechnya, the European Union and the Member States have shown themselves to be incapable of consistency.
I could mention other things such as measures for combating terrorism, measures which have been introduced: what has been done has been done in a disturbingly unbalanced way, in the name of security but very often with disregard for human rights, civil liberties and democracy.
The final issue is that of immigration. I appreciate the efforts which are being made, but I feel that there is a problem of priorities in respect of this issue too. We cannot expect to continue to block imports of goods, farm produce and basic manufactured goods from the poorer developing countries throughout the world and, at the same time, cherish the fond hope that we are managing the issue of legal and illegal immigration properly.
We are still in a situation where the customs tariffs imposed on imports from the poorer countries in the world are greater than the aid we give those countries. In this situation, immigration is in danger of exploding uncontrollably, and so even security and control measures which may, in themselves, be appropriate are actually in danger of sparking off even greater illegal activity and of placing us in a position where we are even less able to control the phenomenon."@en1
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