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Verbatim report of proceedings
Wednesday, 25 September 2002 - Strasbourg OJ edition

CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy)
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  Souladakis (PSE).(EL) Mr President, a neutral onlooker recording the current crises would observe that there is tension surrounding Iraq and a second area of tension in the Middle East. He would also observe that, basically, European policy in both areas of tension is conspicuous by its absence. Does that mean we have no profile? If we look at other areas of the world, we have a very high profile. However, they all have one thing in common. Where we have intervened in crises, we have not intervened either to create a crisis or to resolve it, we have intervened merely in order to manage it.

Yet, in the Middle East, the only time when progress was made, in the agreement between Arafat and assassinated Prime Minister Rabin, the European Union was involved. So what does that prove? That the third pillar of the European Union needs more work to build it up. It needs a stratagem defined in terms of a number of general principles on which we all agree.

What are these general principles? First, respect for the European political culture. Secondly, respect for international law. Thirdly, a balance in relations between the centres of power on the world map. Fourthly, a perception of the fact that a common defence and security policy requires certain minimum policies in other sectors. For example, I should like to ask the Commissioner, what happens next with Galileo? What happens next with the European Union's famous common aircraft carrier, despite the fact that it is nothing to do with the European Union? Having said which, I think that important progress has been made but that more needs to be done, because a Common Foreign and Security Policy forms an integral part of economic development and peace and every other kind of development. I think that the Brok Report provides a fairly relaxed framework for a military perception and we shall slowly have to set it on a firmer basis, with a clear direction and with the objective of international peace, security and cooperation.

 
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