Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 14 September 2011 - Strasbourg

6. Statement by the President

  President. – Ladies and gentlemen, it is a few minutes after 12.00. I am interrupting the voting for a few minutes to honour the victims of the massacre in Norway.This tragedy unfolded almost before our very eyes in July. Please allow me to say a few words at the outset. I want to make a statement, so please remain seated for now.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about a very serious matter which has affected us all. On 22 July, Europe was once again the victim of a terrorist attack. In Norway, a killer murdered 79 mostly very young people in cold blood. Xenophobia and hatred showed their worst side that day, with deadly results. On the island of Utoya and in Oslo, the killer struck out at our basic values, at the foundations of our democratic society, at mostly young people who dreamt of their future and of public service. These cowardly attacks deserve our total condemnation. The events of 22 July showed that terrorism does not have to be an external threat, as happened on 11 September 2001 in the United States. The fanatic turned out to be a member of the same community that was so brutally attacked.

It is important that we draw appropriate conclusions from every such tragic event. Firstly, we must do everything to integrate internally, so that people who live together with us, in our communities throughout Europe or the world, can feel happy to be living together with us. We must also cooperate with every state which is fighting terrorism. This is a huge challenge for us all. In the era of the Internet and globalisation, terrorism knows no frontiers. Norway, a country which awards the Nobel Peace Prize, has been so ruthlessly and painfully attacked. However, terrorism will never succeed in altering our system of values. The most important thing is that our system of values, which we will always protect and cherish, is based on openness, tolerance and respect for other people, and for each member of our community.

On behalf of the European Parliament, I would like to express our full solidarity with the Norwegian people and with the government of that country. Once again, I would also like to offer deepest condolences and expressions of sympathy to the victims’ families. Today, we are still with you in our thoughts, prayers and affections. Two months after the tragedy, we have not forgotten you.

  Gunnar Hökmark, on behalf of the PPE Group. – (SV) Mr President, thank you for this opportunity to say a few words on behalf of this Parliament to the Norwegian people, the people who, for both historical and present-day reasons, we in Sweden call our brothers. What happened was a horrific incident that demonstrated that sometimes evil has no boundaries. It affected so many young people. Even though we have not met them, we know them from their conviction, idealism, passion and the hope of knowing what is right and wrong and of being able to make the world a better place – something that we ourselves should stand for as much as possible.

The Norwegian poet Henrik Ibsen expressed this once with the following words when Denmark was attacked during the Schleswig-Holstein conflict: A brother in need! Every man on deck. During one period in our history, Sweden had reason to say that Finland’s concerns were also our own. What happened in Norway, in Oslo and on Utøya, makes Norway’s concerns the concerns of us all. Our sympathy and compassion and our solidarity can never be compared with the sorrow and pain that so many people in Norway are feeling today, but there is one thing we can say, which is that we share your sorrow and we share your pain. Your concerns are also our concerns.

The Norwegian poet and war correspondent, Nordahl Grieg, has been quoted at countless funerals in Norway this summer, where young men and women have been laid to rest. In his poem ‘For the Youth’, Nordahl Grieg wrote: ‘War is contempt for life/Peace is to create/Throw your strength into it: Death shall lose!’ There is no better way to express our sympathy with the Norwegian people and support for the amazing strength they are showing in wanting to protect their open society, saying that they will meet hatred with love and unity. This should also be our concern, and it can also enable us to say to all of those solitary terrorists out there or those that are organising themselves that we will defend our open society and we will make it more open. These are not empty words, but reflect a realism with the energy to act. It is telling them that they have lost and we have won. It is telling them that we will win and they will lose, because our values are stronger than their hate. That is how we shall honour those who lost their lives on Utøya and in Oslo in Norway – our brothers and our Europe.

(Loud applause)

  Martin Schulz, on behalf of the S&D Group. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, many of my friends in the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, many men and women from our international movement know the place well: Utøya is not only a place for the Norwegian Social Democrats; the International Union of Socialist Youth has often met there. For many of my friends, this place is therefore also associated with very many personal experiences.

It was an attack on the young people of the Norwegian Labour Party, but – as the previous speaker said – the victims here were the young men and women of the Norwegian Socialist Youth. They were the victims of a perpetrator whose target in this case was the Social Democrats, but the annihilation campaign that this terrorist carried out there was aimed at a system of values. The abhorrent nature of this crime is, in my opinion, due in particular to the fact that he did not want this system of values to have a future, and that is why young people in particular had to be killed. Thus, it was also a symbolic act to kill young men and women so that an idea should have no future.

The attack was directed at an idea, and if you read the ideology of this person you very quickly see: no open society, no respect for other cultures, the superiority of white people over other races, in other words no equality of people regardless of skin colour, origin, race or gender – that is an attack on our values and it is also an attack on your values. It is not an attack on Social Democratic values, but on the values of the European Community and European society.

If you so wish, ladies and gentlemen of this House, we as Parliament are the ones who represent these values. It was also an attack on us. It is an attack on everyone. It is therefore right for the European Parliament not only to remember the victims, but also to assimilate the fact that these values were attacked from the inside. We must defend ourselves against this. We must defend ourselves by leaving no room for these sorts of ideas: no room for intolerance, racism, xenophobia, the persecution of minorities, and no scapegoat politics. It is up to all of us to do this together. If we tackle this together, we will put a stop to the sorts of people that need to be stopped.

That is no consolation for the many parents, friends and siblings who are truly suffering. I am grateful to you for the sympathy that you have expressed, Mr President.

The day after this massacre, I received many letters that were addressed to me, but as a representative of the Social Democrats in Norway and the international Social Democratic movement. Many letters came from this House. I would like to single out one of these that touched me in particular. A fellow Member wrote that he took this attack on these young men and women as a personal attack. It was our colleague Mario Mauro. I mention this because he is not a Social Democrat, but had intuitively felt that, whether I am a Socialist or a Christian, whether I am religious or not, whether I am a Muslim, whether black, white or of Indian origin, whether I am a right- or left-leaning Democrat, such people want to destroy us all.

Therefore, if we work together here in the spirit of our common European Charter of Fundamental Rights, as a multinational, multi-ethnic, multi-religion, multicultural Parliament, then that is the best response to this terrorism.

(Applause)

  Guy Verhofstadt, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, in 1940, at the start of the Nazi occupation, the Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg wrote ‘We are so few in this country and every fallen is a brother or a friend’. I think this echoes on today as 76 young people have been massacred – young politicians, youngsters who were just becoming aware of what democracy and citizenship mean, and most of them not even old enough to vote.

It was not only a terrible tragedy and a huge loss, but also a direct attack on democracy itself. But I think simply voicing our disgust is a little too easy today. We cannot turn a blind eye to an act of violence like this. Perhaps Breivik was a madman and acting alone, but let us also be very clear on this. He is also the product of a society, of a movement and of a whole community of activists, chatters and bloggers who despise and reject all societies.

What struck me the most was how quickly public figures and politicians declined any responsibility when instead they should have reacted fiercely against Breivik’s ideology, an ideology that is anti-Islamic, anti-migration, against a multicultural and diverse society, against politically correct thinking, against Europe and, finally, against the European Union.

Breivik was in fact acting against the backdrop of a narrative which is becoming more and more common. It describes the current situation in Europe as disastrous and considers our society to have come to a point where it is fact no longer possible to trust any democratic government at all.

I think that we have to repeat and to remember the words of former President Clinton in his speech on the 15-year commemoration of the Oklahoma bombing. He said that we politicians and political commentators are also responsible for this as our words are not neutral, our words enter an echo chamber, travel through space and fall on the connected and the unhinged alike.

(Applause)

  Daniel Cohn-Bendit, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – (FR) Mr President, when there is a massacre, at first most of us do not know what to say. We are sad; we are frightened, and then in time we begin to reflect.

This attack in Norway was directed at young people: social democrats who held a very strong belief in multicultural solidarity; young people who had come together united by this belief. What is more, there were young Norwegians of Kurdish origin there, and of many different origins, just as in the multicultural societies we have in Europe.

Certain politicians have been telling us for some time that multiculturalism has failed. I have always wanted to know what that means. Does it mean that you are going to send back all those who are not true Norwegians, true Finns, true Dutch, true French, true Swedish, true Italians, true whatever? Where are you going to send them?

These are the kind of ideas and language that lead to this hatred. People do not accept the reality that is now our reality. When we claim to defend the reality that is Europe, to defend European values and European citizens, this means in so many words defending present-day Europe’s multicultural identity. This is the reality in Europe, and it was against this idea that this massacre took place.

When a French Member of this Parliament dares to say that the problem in Norway was not the massacre, but the Norwegian Government’s naivety in tolerating a multicultural society, then this Parliament must say that Mr Le Pen is a disgrace to Parliament for having said this.

(Loud, sustained applause)

I would also like to say this to all true Europeans: if we allow this kind of despicable language into our discussions, and if we allow this idea that today’s Europe cannot and will not be a multicultural society to creep in, then together we are paving the way for people to commit the worst atrocities. We do have a responsibility to reflect and respond when something like this happens, because as Guy Verhofstadt said, we are creating a climate in which madmen and lunatics can act like this.

In taking time to reflect for Norway, we are also reflecting on what we are all doing and saying to each other.

(Loud, sustained applause)

  Jan Zahradil, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, we might have different views on different issues in this Chamber, but I hope that we can all agree on one thing: that Europe is a continent of tolerance, of freedom and of pluralism. We have united in the past to fight those who stand for intolerance and oppression, and to resist those who wanted to destroy our open and democratic society; now we have to stand united again. The promotion of hatred, of fear and of violence has no place in Europe.

Let me express on behalf of my entire Group my deepest sadness over the terrible and brutal criminal act of 22 July. Our thoughts and hearts go out above all to the relatives of the victims, but also to the entire people of Norway and, last but not least, to our Socialist colleagues, to whose political family these innocent young people belonged.

Mr President, you yourself reminded us of the anniversary of 9/11 a few moments ago. In that particular case we quite rightly stressed, in the strongest terms possible, that although those terrorists carried out acts in the name of religion, they did not represent any religion or its followers. I think that we should look at the Norwegian tragedy from a very similar angle. The individual who committed this represented no one: no religion, no relevant political stream, just his own sick mind. I think we should resist the temptation to use this opportunity to politicise this tragedy.

(Applause)

I would like to thank all my colleagues from other political groups who resisted this temptation, who showed decency and who displayed once again that there are universal values common to all of us for which we can stand together.

(Applause)

  Søren Bo Søndergaard, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – (DA) Mr President, for Norway, there is before and after 22 July. For us in Scandinavia, this day was in many ways our 11 September. The attack was not directed at random people; it was a direct attack on Norwegian democracy. It was more than that though. The attack on Utøya was also a carefully planned attack on future leaders of the Norwegian labour movement. It was an attack on the future.

The Labour Party’s youth organisation in Norway was not a random target. In its fight against racism and for tolerance, against inequality and for social justice, against oppression and for international solidarity, it represents everything that the mass murderer detested.

As horrific as it was, we cannot learn anything from the massacre itself, but we can learn an unbelievable amount from the way in which the Norwegian Prime Minister and the Norwegian people reacted to it. In similar situations, others may have demanded revenge, declared war on terror and implemented one restriction of democratic rights after another, but not Prime Minister Stoltenberg. He insisted that the response to this act of terrorism should be yet more democracy, yet more openness and yet more humanity. He received support for this position from the Norwegian people.

Throughout Norway and the rest of Scandinavia hundreds of thousands of people have taken part this summer in rallies against terrorism and in defence of democracy and tolerance. The message of these rallies has been crystal clear: evil can kill a person, but it can never defeat an entire nation.

  Francesco Enrico Speroni, on behalf of the EFD Group. – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group would like to express its sorrow and its solidarity in the face of the attack against the Norwegian people and against humanity itself. There can be no possible justification for this act, because no idea, no motivation can be used to support a massacre. Even in the face of this appalling incident, our values of freedom and democracy will remain true to the principles that have shaped our coexistence and the relationship between our peoples.

  Diane Dodds (NI). - Mr President, we all share in the sorrow, anger and dismay at such a futile act of mass murder. May I express my sympathy, and the sympathy of my constituents, with the people of Norway in this tragedy? Sadly, in Northern Ireland, we know the horror of terrorism only too well. That this terrorism should be directed at young people is particularly horrifying.

Many eminent people have been quoted here today, many statesmen, writers, politicians. I think, as probably the last speaker in this round, it would be appropriate if I take you to the words of one young survivor, who explained in her blog how she rushed through the bushes and the rocks to escape the killer: ‘I can't even shed a tear’, she wrote, ‘I can't believe it. Today I almost died. We don't deserve to die and that is also why I am writing this post. We are just ordinary people. We are involved in politics. We want to make the world a better place’.

Mr President, we stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Norway at this time of grief. In this House, we come from all shades of political opinion. While many of us find the politics of the far right sickening, by standing together as democrats we can ensure that terror and violence will never prevail.

(Applause)

  Cecilia Malmström, Member of the Commission. − Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what happened on 22 July in Norway was a horrible tragedy; a brutality hard to imagine, the worst of nightmares.

On the beautiful island of Utoya that nightmare became a reality. Eight people died in the terror attack on the government area in Oslo that day; that was the attack of one man. Later that day he brutally, cold-bloodedly shot 70 teenagers while disguised as a policeman. A policeman who in Norway and in many other countries is a symbol of safety and protection. Our thoughts are of course with the families, relatives and friends of the victims and of all the Norwegian people.

But we are all concerned by this attack because it was an attack on democracy, on the democratic institutions, on our values and on our ideals. It was an attack on young people preparing to take an active part in public life in party politics.

This event brought to light the dangers of right-wing extremism because the ideas of a sick man are nurtured today by xenophobia, extremism, attacks against multiculturalism, populism, etc. This ideology of hatred we must all fight. The Norwegian people have handled their grief in a dignified and determined way. I think we have all been impressed by the firm commitment of the Norwegian people to stand up for democracy, openness and our common values. In that determination we must all join them.

(Applause)

  President. − Let us now observe a minute’s silence in commemoration and honour of those who died, murdered in July in Norway.

(The House rose and observed a minute’s silence)

  Robert Goebbels (S&D). – (FR) Mr President, I would simply like to point out that the staunch anti-European Mr Farage, who is here in this building, has decided he would rather be noticed for his absence than join with democrats in their grieving.

  President. – Ladies and gentlemen, this is a moment of great sadness. I would ask that we should not raise any matters of individual interest. We are all in a very serious mood.