Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-040"
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"en.20020612.1.3-040"2
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Mr President, I will speak very briefly – firstly due to time restrictions and secondly because it would be practically impossible to respond in detail to all the speakers – but I would like to say – in response to all the Members, such as President Poettering, who have said that we will judge the Spanish Presidency on the basis of the outcome of Seville – that the Presidency does not only exist for one Council, but rather from 1 January to 30 June. Many days have passed, there are still many days left and we are going to do many things.
Furthermore, I would like to say to Mr De Rossa that the European Council will give its opinion on the particular problem that he has mentioned, on a declaration which may help Ireland to present itself better and to provide greater security for its citizens in light of the ratification of the Treaty of Nice. This issue will be dealt with and we hope to be able to issue a declaration which is as positive as possible, along the very lines that Mr De Rossa has indicated.
As well as all these issues, there are other external policy issues which we have already discussed. I have taken good note of the speeches, in particular those which relate to the conflict between India and Pakistan. I would like to reiterate the European Council’s intention to deal with this issue by sending the most forthright and constructive possible message and I believe it is almost impossible to examine everything that is going to be dealt with at the Council in detail, but I believe this Council will be the culmination of an incredibly intense six-month period.
I have not referred to immigration and asylum, but what I did want to say – since I cannot end without mentioning this issue which has been raised by many of you – is that I believe that the situation of illegal immigration is of concern to the whole of the European public, not legal immigration, since that has its official channels and there are millions of immigrants who have already settled in Europe, which has always been a land of acceptance and asylum. What is raising great difficulties for European society is this wave of illegal immigrants which, precisely because they are illegal, are marginalised, living in illegal situations and are victims of exploitation and therefore suffer to an extent which is intolerable in our society. We must therefore combat it.
With regard to the Tampere programme, well there it is, and if any part of it has not been implemented, this is due to the fact that it has not been possible to implement it between 1999 and 2002. Is that the responsibility of the Council? It will be, but it is not the responsibility of the current Presidency of the Council, but rather the accumulated responsibility of many other Presidencies.
The fact that this Presidency wants to put the Tampere programme on the table and say ‘let us do it once and for all’, should be praised rather than criticised. Therefore, I believe that this issue, like all the issues relating to illegal immigration, is of concern to European society today and it is logical that the Heads of State and Government should deal with all aspects of them. By the way, this is an entirely public dimension, because there are Commission proposals and furthermore I would like to point out that tomorrow and the next day the Justice and Home Affairs Council will meet and deal with all of these issues. Councils are public and everybody knows the content of their agendas. I do not therefore believe that there are any hidden agendas in relation to asylum and immigration and all the issues to be dealt with at the Seville European Council.
Mr President, I would simply like to say that this Council marks the end of this period, which has been hard and difficult; let us hope that the Seville conclusions are able to reflect all the work we have done and that they fulfil the expectations which European society and this Parliament have of the work of the Council and the Commission.
The impression is always given that the Union rests upon the will of a single country; holding the Presidency of the Union means that one country is responsible for coordinating the activities of the Union, not for carrying out all the Union’s duties, because that is done by the Union itself. There is something else which is not made sufficiently clear: the results of a Presidency – and at the end of the day a presidency is a period of time – are the results of good inter-institutional agreement: the Council can do nothing without the support and initiatives of the Commission, and the Commission and the Council can do nothing without the support of Parliament. I believe that over these six months – and this is what I should stress most – the Presidency has received great support from the European Commission at all times, and it still is receiving it; thanks to the efforts of the European Commission – and its right of initiative, in accordance with which it has presented its proposals – we have been able to resolve and do many things. Also on the issue of co-decision and Parliament’s legislative duties, truly significant successes have been achieved, which we cannot fail to note: the last sitting approved – without the need for conciliation, and for the first time in history, thanks to the efforts of Parliament – the Research and Development Framework Programme, and also, thanks to the joint efforts of Parliament and the Presidency, the statute on the European Parliament’s electoral system, which had been in deadlock for years, is going to be approved today.
I am not going to make an assessment of the Spanish Presidency, of course: that will be done by the President of the Council at the sitting of 2 July, which is intended for just that purpose. Then Mr Nogueira will have his wish, since he is so keen to see the President of the Spanish Government. On 2 July, at 10 a.m., we would like to see you here, Mr Nogueira, because, once the Presidency has ended – and it ends on Sunday, 30 June – the President will give an account of its results.
We are now talking about the Seville Council and there are certain issues I would like to comment on. The President of the Group of the European People’s Party – and certain other Members, such as Mr Swoboda – have expressed concern about the issue of interinstitutional cooperation. I would like to say firstly that it would have been impossible for the Council and the Commission to have made any more effort during this six-month period to reach an interinstitutional agreement. Furthermore, that agreement already exists, I do not know why we are bringing the issue up again. We have held a meeting in which the three institutions have agreed to create a high-level interinstitutional group, on three levels: first-level politician (presidents), second-level politician (commissioners, ministers and committee chairmen), and technical (secretaries-general of the three institutions and ambassadors/permanent representatives). This has now been created. Who is calling this into question?
By the way, it does not fall to me to explain the conclusions of the Council, that is not my responsibility, but I would urge the Members of this Parliament to read them and, when you have read them, we will speak again. On 2 July, you will have the opportunity to ask Mr Aznar whether or not that commitment has really been fulfilled. I do not understand why demands are being made here when things have developed in accordance with the commitments we had accepted. I would remind you that there was a meeting here in February between President Prodi, President Aznar and President Cox at which the decision was taken. I do not know why the issue is being raised again now. The issue of ‘better regulation’ falls entirely within the framework of that interinstitutional cooperation that we intend to implement.
With regard to other criticisms of the Socialist Group which I have heard, I believe that the syndrome of bringing the antagonism of internal politics to the European Parliament is very bad. I am not therefore going to get involved in that slanging match about who is performing well and who is performing badly. I am not going to respond, since I believe that the Spanish Presidency has done what it could and that its results are sufficiently satisfactory and above all I believe that we will be able to see the results of the Spanish Presidency on 2 July.
With regard to the other issues in the Council, such as enlargement, this afternoon we will have the opportunity to talk at length. I would like to say that yesterday we finished the latest ministerial conferences on accession in Luxembourg, although there will be another, at vice-president level, before the end of the month. The result is that during these six months 87 negotiation chapters have been concluded. Of 31 chapters, the majority of the Member States have concluded an average of between 26 and 29. In other words, an average of around two or three chapters will remain for the Danish Presidency to conclude. The ‘road map’ has been completed, and the only thing that remains to be agreed on – and which I hope can be agreed before the Seville European Council – is the common position on agriculture. We know why the common position has not been concluded: there are a number of countries which wish to ignore the principles of the Community acquis and establish two classes of country – those which receive direct payments and those which do not – seriously discriminating against the candidate countries and taking advantage of the situation, taking enlargement hostage, in order to further their objectives in terms of the reform of a certain common policy. If they do not agree to what they should agree to, those countries will have to take responsibility for having delayed enlargement and will have to answer to this Parliament, to their respective publics and to the candidate countries. Therefore, on the subject of enlargement I just wish to add that the Seville European Council only has to begin to talk, to acknowledge that the technical ‘road map’ has been completed and draw up a great political itinerary: what is going to be done after concluding the negotiations, to see what our perspective is going to be for 2003, how the Treaty is going to be signed, how the ratifications are going to be carried out, how the new candidate countries are going to be incorporated into the Intergovernmental Conference and how they are going to participate in the European Parliament elections. That is the political ‘road map’ that the Seville European Council has to draw up; the technical one is finished. Therefore, you can rest assured, since, with the efforts made by the Council and the tremendous support of the Commission, the Spanish Presidency has been able to fulfil the mandate of the European Council and also of this Parliament.
With regard to the reform of the Council, it is clear that the Council has a dual dimension: executive and legislative. The legislative dimension needs to be more transparent – we are the first to agree with this – and the reforms of the Council move in that very direction. They also move in the direction of making it more effective; to divide up the General Affairs Council and the External Affairs Council; to reduce the structure of the Council; to establish better methods for preparing European Councils; also reducing the machinery of the European Councils and making them more effective and smaller; to create a system of conclusions which does not involve an interminable debate on insignificant details etc. All of these are possible internal reforms of the Council which move in the direction of transparency, but which in no way compromise the provisions of primary Law, which fall to the Intergovernmental Conference.
I am not going to continue to insist on the economic issues. There is an issue which I have not mentioned, since it was the subject of a debate yesterday afternoon in this House: the Johannesburg Summit and sustainable development. We are very aware of the failure of the preparation conference in Bali, the PREPCON, and we want the Seville European Council to offer clear guidelines in order to re-affirm the leadership of the European Union in relation to the big issues for Johannesburg, which are development aid, respect for the environment and sustainable development. During this Spanish Presidency, the Union has ratified the Kyoto Protocol and obtained a commitment in Monterrey on funding for development which in reality is a commitment on which we have managed to combine the wills of everybody and by means of which the whole of the developed world has committed itself to increasing its level of development aid. I believe that these two factors can allow us to go to Johannesburg with the conviction that we belong to a group of countries which lead the world on all the great issues of sustainable development. The Seville European Council will therefore acknowledge this as well."@en1
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