Frassoni (Verts/ALE). – (IT) Madam President, the Minister began her speech by talking about her generation. I belong to the generation that, in Italy, is called the ‘ebb’ [apolitical] generation – I am too young for either ‘68 or ‘77 – and I am used to thinking of the police and the carabinieri as those who ensure personal safety and who have made it possible to defeat terrorism in Italy. The most surprising and shocking thing for me in the Genoa events was therefore to actually see how, within the forces of law and order, something tiny, a mere change of government, a defamatory campaign by the anti-G8 movement, inadequate organisation and a bunch of violent hooligans, was enough to bring out in some of them – I stress some of them – a desire to become the instruments of blind and profoundly stupid intimidation.

This, Mr Tajani, Commissioner Vitorino, is a European, not a national issue. The divide that, from Nice to Gothenburg to Genoa and, perhaps tomorrow to Laeken – even if the Minister’s fine words perhaps give us grounds for optimism – is being erected, for right or for wrong, whether we like it or not, between people who, in good faith, want to take action for a better world and the institutions – the police, Parliament, government – is something that should concern us all, on both left and right.

I am convinced that if police cooperation had been applied effectively and with respect for individual rights, if free movement were a true right, with the same level of priority as the free movement of capital, if the Charter of Fundamental Rights were in the DNA of all of us, the worst events of Genoa would, perhaps, not have taken place. That is why I believe that, to prevent another Nice, another Gothenburg or another Genoa, we need two things, and the first of them is transparency. In Italy, the Courts are already hard at work, as is the parliamentary committee of inquiry. Here, we must make a precise assessment of the lines along which the cooperation between European police forces was conducted and ascertain whether or not the Charter of Fundamental Rights was violated in the treatment of prisoners.

The second and last thing, Madam President, is to understand whether suspension of the Schengen rules can justify the indiscriminate, collective ban on free movement.

These are the things we must do in this House, and I hope we shall all work together to achieve them.