Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-14-Speech-3-069"
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"en.20070214.2.3-069"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, honourable Members, in this debate, you have expressed your views on many of the conclusions to be found in the report from the temporary committee on the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners, and your contributions have indeed been very diverse, although, notwithstanding that diversity, I have had my impression confirmed that the great majority of your House endorses the fundamental position that, while, on the one hand, the war on terror is indeed necessary and legitimate, the end does not, however, justify the means, or – to put it another way – that the means used must, if this war is be won, be lawful.
The last speech again addressed the Council, urging it to act, but, as I said on the Council’s behalf at the beginning of this debate, the Council itself has no powers in this area, and I must repudiate the accusations levelled in one of the last interventions at Mr Solana, for he has certainly offered, in this matter, whatever cooperation he was able to give.
However, something else that emerged from the debate is that numerous initiatives have been taken in the Member States, primarily on the part of their parliaments, and these investigations are in line with the demands made in your report. While I see it as right and proper to set such investigations in motion in order to bring the facts to light, I also find it regrettable that there are various points in the report at which suppositions are made out to be facts.
In response to Mrs Kaufmann’s reference to the cases in Germany, I have to say – albeit without wishing to pre-empt the
’s interim report – that the investigations have revealed that there was no wrongdoing on the part of the German authorities; in particular, no evidence was found to back up the recurrent allegations to the effect that German officials had known of Mr El-Masri’s arrest and rendition.
The committee of inquiry is also considering the case of Mr Kurnaz, and it has come to light that the US Government did not, in 2002, offer to release Mr Kurnaz in the manner surmised by the report. The committee will, however, continue to consider this matter.
In response to your various references to Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union, let me say that you may perhaps regard this as an argument from formality, but the Council is not entitled to initiate action of this kind.
Commissioner Frattini also mentioned the role of the secret services, and there were also contributions from the floor that stressed the importance of their work, although it has to be said that the question of on what basis that work is done is of course an important one. That, too, though, is a task primarily for the nation states, and it is, in the final analysis, the parliaments who must define the demands to which these secret services are subject.
Reference has also been made, in some speeches, to relations across the Atlantic. It has to be said, in general terms, that, in the fight against terrorism, measures in the interests of internal security that are generally applicable rather than limited to one Member State of the European Union can in fact be undertaken only in very close cooperation with the United States, and that cooperation needs to be developed.
It is also important, in this cooperation across the Atlantic, to make clear that the war on international terrorism has to be waged on the basis of the common values on which the European Union and the United States agree."@en1
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