Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-06-Speech-3-020"
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"en.20050706.2.3-020"2
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"Mr President, during the Communist era in Poland, a joke did the rounds about a travel agency that allegedly used the following advertising slogan; ‘visit the Soviet Union before the Soviet Union visits you’. An updated version of this joke might be; ‘let us take care of Iraq before Iraqi terrorists take care of us’.
The EU Special Representative for Afghanistan recently said that our political presence and substantial financial involvement in the country were necessary because the EU had made the mistake of failing to take any interest whatsoever in Afghanistan between 1990 and 2001. We should avoid making the same mistake with Iraq, and we should not leave the country to the Americans. In my opinion, both supporters and opponents of US intervention in Iraq – and I include myself in the latter camp – can and should agree on the fact that the EU must act as a stabilising force in Iraq and the surrounding region.
The EU committed a grave error by failing to send observers to the January 2005 elections in Iraq. He who is absent is always in the wrong, and has no say in how he would like events to unfold.
I should like to end by thanking Mr Straw for our meeting last Thursday in London, and to tell him that the Committee on Foreign Affairs still has the same chairman, namely Elmar Brok."@en1
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