Pomés Ruiz (PPE-DE). – (ES) Madam President, the relentless escalation of terrorism is turning the fight against it into a priority objective of a number of policies, and, therefore, of the policy we want here in Parliament.

Recent events, such as those in Bali, the Philippines and Israel, show the urgency of coordinated, joint action to eliminate this social scourge which attacks the most fundamental rights, such as life and democracy, the system of government that we have chosen for ourselves.

Fortunately, we reached a swift agreement, and, ten days after the attacks on 11 September 2001, we had already signed a plan to combat terrorism jointly. Mr Vitorino and Mr Patten – who is not present – now is the time to come to this House, to tell us the problems relating to the development of this plan and identify those involved. We do not need a general opinion. We must go into detail and say which States are cooperating more or less than others, because this is a problem that we are also experiencing on our doorstep.

Last Saturday, the citizens’ group Basta ya, to which we awarded the Sakharov prize, organised a huge demonstration in San Sebastián for the freedom of Basque and Spanish citizens, so that each individual, whether nationalist or otherwise, might hold whatever political beliefs they wish. Last Tuesday, we interrupted the Plenary to condemn the attack in which a sergeant in the Spanish Civil Guard, Juan Carlos Beiro, died in Leiza (Navarre).

This is a priority objective, which should encourage all European citizens to call on you to come here to provide explanations, and the Council to identify those States which are fulfilling their duties, implementing the action plan we implemented on 21 September 2001, and those which are not.

If we do not identify who is fulfilling their duties to the greatest and the least extent, we will not be serving our electorate nor defending democracy with democracy.