Fullständigt förhandlingsreferat

Torsdagen den 1 juni 2017 - Bryssel

8.9. Resiliens som en strategisk prioritering för EU:s yttre åtgärder (B8-0381/2017)

Explications de vote orales

  Diane James (NI). – Madam President, the European Union’s global strategy aims to be both principled and pragmatic, yet this is clearly impossible. The policy can only be either principled, or pragmatic, it cannot be both. And here the European Union is trying to use words to pull the wool over our eyes. It is making the claim that it can be all things to all men in the name of promoting civil society. The reality is that the European Union is consolidating its strengths as a global actor to compensate for, and in the wake of, Brexit. It is hardening its tone internationally, often in areas that do not concern it, and is accelerating its plans for its own military forces. But the sad reality of European Union foreign policy is that it has a history of destabilising regions like the Ukraine and the Balkans, and also unleashing events that it cannot control, like the migrant crisis. It did not have my support today.

  Andrejs Mamikins (S&D). – Madam President, resilience is a very important factor to make the external actions of the EU effective. There are a lot of challenges along this way, among them I would like to stress two factors: bureaucracy and political blindness.

Bureaucracy makes our external actions slow, inflexible and rigid. Political blindness we can see very often here, even in this House. A lot of politicians live in a virtual world of their illusions, emotions, local interests and ideologies – they do not want to see the cultural and historical background of concrete countries. They put in place red lines, limitations and labels – very easy. But sometimes, after they have lost interest, these restrictions remain. This makes the job of the professionals that work with fragile states on the ground very difficult, and narrows the number of possibilities and instruments of the EU’s External Action Service.

So we should not only give recommendations to others, but also start with a critical view of our own political participation.