Mr President, I would like firstly to express, on behalf of my group, our unease at this Council proposal at a time when, within the Union, we are working – and this is shown in the initiatives which the Commission has taken and is taking – on the communitisation of what we have called the ‘Third Pillar’ and on the development of an immigration and reception policy for citizens from third countries. We are uneasy because we do not understand very well where this High Level Working Group comes from or why it is being maintained, why the Council is making a proposal in this way and why that proposal was taken up at Tampere; what the Commission is going to do in these action plans and what coherence there is between this proposal and the work carried out by the Council’s High Level Working Group and the rest of the Commission proposals on policies to be implemented in the Union. I believe this is important and I would like an answer from the Council. Secondly, I would like to say that we have mixed feelings with regard to these action plans. On the one hand, what they say seems reasonable; it seems reasonable to establish bilateral policies between the European Union and some of the countries in which the problem of the exodus of migrants and refugees is greatest; this seems useful. This is the case with Morocco, for example, with whom we must establish a serious and significant bilateral relationship in order to ensure that the immigration originating from that country remains within the law. This may also be the case with the Balkan countries, where it is clear who our partners are. On the other hand, however, there are countries on this list whose governments do not even deserve to be described as such, and countries with which I do not think we should speak, such as Afghanistan. I would like to ask the Council if it intends to go to Afghanistan and say, ‘Good afternoon. We have come to tell you to respect human rights because you are sending us too many refugees.’ This would be absolutely incredible or, at least, very naive. Furthermore, it seems to me that broaching this issue with these countries is difficult and dangerous. I believe that there are some people that we should not even speak to on principle. Therefore, since we cannot adopt a cross-pillar approach – that is to say, between the Third and the First Pillar – taking the shortest route, I believe that the Council should once again consult this Parliament on each and every action plan which is to be set up, in accordance with the provisions of the First Pillar. I have pointed out two problems: who is going to take charge of these action plans and with whom? There is a third problem: how are we going to pay for them? There is no budgetary contribution set aside for them and the measures which provide for some degree of funding will apparently take money, for example, from cooperation programmes such as MEDA. It is difficult to see how the idea of codevelopment and the idea of working with these countries in order to tackle immigration at source can be compatible with the idea of taking away funds earmarked for cooperation in development, in order to guard external borders. I believe this warrants some reflection. Finally, the development of action plans is on the ‘scoreboard’. This is a good thing, but I would like to remind you that there is an action plan that has been implemented, that of Iraq, on which nobody has ever provided us with any information.

Political group: PSE