Elena Valenciano Martínez-Orozco (PSE). – (ES) What has happened is extremely serious and we must not pretend it is not. On the contrary, the political leaders of the Member States and of the European Union must investigate, clarify and explain to the citizens the extent to which each party is responsible.

Illegal CIA flights, though they are in themselves flagrantly illegal, were simply one instrument in a cruel and entirely illegal system of detentions, interrogations, torture and disappearances. There is no getting away from the fact that there is ample evidence to make a political judgment unreservedly condemning this huge operation put together by the Bush Government and supported to a greater or lesser extent by certain European leaders.

Can there be any greater hypocrisy, Mr President, than to condemn Guantánamo in this House, to call for its closure and then to send police officials to interrogate prisoners? The fight against terrorism will continue to be one of the European Union’s priorities, and we will need the greatest possible cooperation with our North American ally, but that will only be possible if there is mutual trust and full respect for the rule of law.

This House must send out a crystal-clear message. Europe has already learnt the lesson of torture, of detentions without safeguards, persecutions and concentration camps. It is on the basis of those painful experiences that we have created democratic rules and international law and we are not going to give them up, not even in the name of global security. Mr President, what is at stake today is not the credibility of the Bush Government, whose anti-terrorist strategy has failed. It is our credibility. It is our credibility that we are talking about.