Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-09-Speech-3-252"
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"en.20030409.5.3-252"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Morillon on his excellent report. His ability to achieve very broad consensus in this House on this extremely important issue is demonstrated not only by this debate, but also by the relatively few amendments that have been tabled. Comparing that with the situation in similar debates as recently as five years ago, we see that there is today in this House very broad consensus on the need for a European defence contribution. On that I congratulate Mr Morillon.
His report is an important building block in the development of a security strategy for the European Union. Why is that necessary? We took note last September of the United States' new security strategy. Week in and week out, we are at present seeing how systematically the United States implements it. What we Europeans need is a European security strategy to be a response to that. We Europeans need, as the first building block in our common foreign policy, to start by together defining what our security interests are. I believe this to be perfectly possible.
Firstly, there is broad consensus about the European Union's ability, within the NATO framework, to defend itself against any conceivable aggressor, whether this be done together with our allies, or, if need be, independently. I would very much welcome a decision by the Convention to propose a mutual support clause for the new constitution of the European Union.
We should, secondly, be developing our capacities, so we still need time to make necessary contributions to crisis management in the area around the European Union, which must be both civil and military. That is not yet the case today, and we have not yet been able to do that independently, but it is a capacity that we must develop.
Thirdly, we in the European Union should be in a position to carry out rescue operations anywhere in the world and at any time, where the safety of European citizens is involved. Those are three more building blocks towards a security strategy for the European Union.
If we develop one, we must take into account the experiences we have had of comparable major projects, such as the internal market or the European currency. These were successful only because we had specific requirements on content and time, because we were clear about what we want to do and when we wanted to be able to do it. The Morillon Report deals with this issue in a number of ways.
What the public expects of the European Union is peace, security and stability. We in the European Parliament must do our bit to ensure that the European Union does, as a whole, live up to these expectations."@en1
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