Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-321"
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"en.20060404.24.2-321"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner Figeľ, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, welcome this programme warmly – being, as it is, an attempt to respond to the crisis of confidence in Europe perceived by many citizens.
It is important to be able to hold broad debates at the coalface on Europe’s understanding of itself in political and cultural terms, on its social responsibility and its future, and also on the role it wants to play in the world. After all, having the opportunity to speak to large numbers of citizens at the coalface – young people, the elderly, people in cultural organisations and political associations – about all Europe’s political issues is the only way to reach the people and their hearts more successfully than we have done in recent months.
That is why the issue of Europe’s future is so central to this programme – but equally so is that of Europe’s past. Indeed, it is unfortunately the case that Europe is the continent whose totalitarianism, whose National Socialism and whose Stalinism has brought great suffering, murder and crime upon not only Europe but also other parts of the world. Therefore, I think it right that this programme recall that very totalitarian past, that we reappraise that past, and that we be sensitive and do everything possible to ensure that such things cannot happen again.
I should like to state explicitly, therefore, that I do not see this as a matter of competing with other dictatorial regimes that have existed in Europe. It is of course right to reappraise these at national level – and we are all attending to this – but it is equally right that this European programme make reference to Europe’s totalitarianism. Therefore, I, too, am in favour of the rapporteur’s motion."@en1
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