Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-23-Speech-2-016"
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"en.20080923.4.2-016"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commission Vice-President, with their reports, Mrs Lefrançois and Mrs Roure have done a great deal of work, and I have also been delighted to have been able to work together with them as they did so. We have achieved a lot and also made a big difference. I regret that Mrs Roure’s report is still stuck in the Council even though we have revised it. In this regard I feel the things Mr Jouyet spoke about are lacking somewhat, namely that we seize on topics and declare them a priority. We also heard this repeatedly and most recently from the German Council Presidency. Unfortunately, it has just not been translated into action. Parliament cannot be satisfied in the long run purely with lip service.
With regard to the report by Mrs Lefrançois: there is definitely something remarkable in this report that none of you has yet addressed. It implies that we have here one of the rare cases in which we are harmonising substantive criminal law – quite clearly beyond the field of the environment. This is something that goes way beyond what the European Union has been doing until now. In civil law we have seen it in cross-border matters. However, harmonising substantive criminal law goes much deeper than has been broached here. Hence the Commission understands perhaps why we are conducting such an intensive discussion on public provocation or incitement. ‘Incitement’ is a normal judicial term in every Member State. The member states of the Council of Europe decided on the term ‘provocation’ as a compromise. This also includes countries such as Russia.
I do not believe that we have to discuss whether we all have a common legal basis with this. I have also continued to make it clear in discussions with Mrs Lefrançois that, from my national perspective alone, I have a problem with the term ‘incitement’, as it is also worded here, because the fact that an incitement can be punished without there being a premeditated unlawful predicate crime is alien to our system. In that the clause allows for incitement or provocation, both these terms are at worst even a bluff. They both fail to show premeditation on the part of the perpetrator. It is solely dependent on the perception of third parties whether what someone has said could be a serious provocation to commit a terrorist offence or not. At the moment I am wondering where you draw the line between the terrorist and the irate citizen around the regulars’ table who is denounced by his neighbour.
In this respect we must also touch upon the existing legal systems. I know that it is different in some respects in Spain, but this is so that it can combat home-grown terrorism. Believe me, I am thankful that I am young enough not to have lived through the bad times of the RAF in Germany, but then, too, appropriate laws were discussed. Of course countries must act exceptionally in special cases, but in the last seven years we have also seen that much of what was decided at the outset in a frenzy of activity must now be retracted. In this respect I am also glad that we have been focusing on people and fundamental rights across party lines in this report.
With regard to the Roure report, it is much more critical that the Council takes action. We must not fool ourselves with regard to the Treaty of Lisbon. We all want it to stand until the European elections in 2009, but we also know that I want never gets. We now have to try to weave this report into these discussions – particularly with regard to the talks currently being conducted by the Commission with the United States on an EU/US data protection agreement. Indeed, the two cannot be allowed to exist independently of each other. Hence I should like us not only to seize the political will, but ultimately also to take a political decision, to enable the Framework Decision on data protection to finally come into force.
The Commission and Council are striving, with an incredible amount of activity, to take action in the field of the economic protection of personal data. When we see what is happening in the United Kingdom, Germany and other Member States, where there are cases of loss or theft of personal data administered by public authorities, we have just as urgent a need for action here. This is ultimately more than ever about citizens’ rights, as they are not able to prevent their government behaving in this way. With enterprises, the citizen is still able to choose a different one in case of doubt."@en1
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