Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-07-02-Speech-2-034"
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".
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, 2002 is a crucial year for European integration – a year marked by projects and challenges of huge political and historical significance such as enlargement and the debate on the political and institutional nature of the Union today and in the future. In the last few months, another challenge has caught our attention – immigration – which calls for more reflection on the balance we need to achieve within our societies in Europe and in relations between the northern and southern hemispheres.
Ladies and gentlemen, as it draws near, enlargement is generating a wave of reform throughout the entire Union. This is focused on two main areas: the Convention, which is about to wind up the first phase of its work, and the three main institutions of the Union.
Under the chairmanship of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the Convention’s task is to devise lasting solutions for the Europe of tomorrow consisting of 25 Member States or more, and to think about the type of Union we want for our continent.
As I said, however, there are other processes under way, both within the EU and on its doorstep, as Mr Aznar said in his speech, and these demand that we review the workings of the institutions as of now – resolutely, swiftly and pragmatically – without waiting for the Treaties to be amended and without interfering in the work of the Convention. The Convention is sacrosanct: even minimal interference is out of the question. The impact of enlargement on the way the institutions function must, for example, be assessed immediately, so the necessary measures can be put in place by the beginning of 2004 at the latest.
Secondly, we must not forget that the Community system depends on a fine balance between our institutions, based on a set of checks and balances, with the institutions functioning interdependently. Any change affecting one institution will thus have a structural impact on all the others. A coordinated and concerted approach is therefore vital in the streamlining processes underway in all the institutions. I am pleased to note that, in some ways, this is already happening more or less spontaneously. The Corbett report to Parliament, the Solana report and our own proposals on reforming the way the Commission works all point in the same direction. In particular, the new rules approved at Seville concerning the European Council and the other Council configurations and my ideas on reforming the College of Commissioners have a great deal in common. Both initiatives organise the activities of their respective institutions in a more flexible and simpler way, identifying a set of core tasks and assigning them to coordination bodies with clearly determined responsibilities.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this historic time, creative solutions must be found right away with the instruments to hand – with the instruments we have already, without amending the Treaties. As I said before, however, we must act coherently. That is also the idea behind our set of proposals on better regulation.
I am therefore pleased that the Seville European Council decided to set up a High-Level Technical Group for Interinstitutional Cooperation and that it called on the three institutions to adopt an interinstitutional agreement before the end of the year to improve the quality of Community legislation and its transposal into national law. This is the task before us in the coming months and I am sure we will tackle it calmly, with dedication and in the spirit of cooperation that has now become a feature of our relations. I would like to thank you, Members of Parliament, and Mr Aznar and his colleagues, for precisely that spirit of cooperation, for we have worked pragmatically and energetically in the last six months.
We are quite familiar with the difficulties involved in these challenges and we must pay tribute to the Spanish Presidency, which has guided the Union through the last six months as it tackled all these problems with drive and wisdom. I would like to take this opportunity to thank President Aznar, his ministers and all those who worked with him for their work. I would add, moreover, that cooperation between the Presidency and the Commission has reached great heights. The Commission and Spain have established a method that can, I hope, be applied by all future Presidencies.
One of the Union’s successes in these past six months has been the way the roadmap for enlargement has been followed. At Seville, we made further progress: we achieved common positions on the chapters on agriculture and the Structural Funds and we identified the last hurdles to overcome. In the autumn, by the Brussels European Council in October, to be precise, we must have agreement within the Union on certain budgetary issues and, in particular, on direct payments to farmers.
Sometime in the autumn too, the citizens of Ireland will be taking part in a second referendum to ratify the Treaty of Nice. I have every confidence that, this time, the debate will focus on the real substance of the Treaty rather than on other issues wrongly laid at the Union’s door and I therefore have no doubt that the outcome will be positive. In this connection, I see the European Council’s declaration at Seville on respect for Ireland’s military neutrality as highly significant.
I therefore continue to look forward to the Copenhagen European Council with great optimism. We are gradually overcoming the potential obstacles to a definitive decision on enlargement. The great commitment displayed by the candidate countries over the last few years deserves to meet with success. I cannot stress too often that enlargement and the related reforms are and will remain our main political priority and that the Commission will spare no effort to reach that goal, a goal whose strategic importance stretches far beyond the confines of Europe.
Asylum and immigration were high on the Seville European Council’s agenda, and what prevailed at Seville were common sense, good judgment and moderation. Illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings are unacceptable and the EU has made it clear that it will do its utmost to put a stop to them.
This is not just a declaration of intent. At Seville, clear recommendations and timeframes were laid down, for example for the conclusion of the re-admission agreements currently being negotiated and the launching of talks with the other countries identified by the Council, the implementation of joint operations at external borders before the end of 2002, and the introduction of common visa arrangements by March 2003. The importance of these timeframes must in no way be underestimated. Experience teaches us that we can only make coherent progress by setting definite dates. I assure you we will work to ensure those commitments are met on time.
Overall, however, immigration calls for a comprehensive approach that takes all the political, social and human dimensions fully into account. Border control is bound up with asylum policies, security is linked to ensuring fair treatment for all the citizens and internal security, and the effectiveness of the various decisions and measures within the Union depends on the relations with third countries and the development cooperation we are able to achieve too.
Recovering the spirit of Tampere, the Council neglected none of these aspects and demonstrated considerable even-handedness. This is reassuring for all the citizens, for those who are concerned about the future of legal immigrants, who believe in open, tolerant societies, and for those who are worried about illegal immigration and the people who exploit it and who therefore want security stepped up. Of course, there is more to security than just managing immigration: it also depends on a number of issues which need to be addressed
where a comprehensive Union approach can really make a difference. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the lessons we must learn from Seville, where there was an even clearer awareness that some problems cannot be solved purely at national level, and there is a need for courageous, far-sighted policies and decisions at European level."@en1
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