Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I will start by recommending that we conduct this debate as we have always done over many years, without allowing it to be interrupted by utterances that are inappropriate at a time such as this. Mr President, I wish, on behalf of our group, to warmly thank the Spanish Presidency and extend my congratulations on a successful term of office, sentiments already expressed by the vigorous applause from the whole House. Mr Aznar, you have come to Parliament on three occasions, thus setting an example to other presidencies, and one that I hope they will follow. A free society can endure only if we determinedly resist every form of terrorism, and you demonstrated exemplary commitment to doing this in the face of ETA terrorism in Spain long before 11 September 2001. On behalf of our group, I would like to tell you that we are ready, willing and alongside you in the defence of freedom and democracy against terrorism. (Applause) As you have said, Mr President, you have covered important ground on asylum and immigration policy. We are in favour of our making our borders secure, and we also advocate that border patrols be integrated on European lines, but, as you also said, it is important that we deal firmly with the causes of immigration and counteract them, and the Valencia conference played an important part in building up the Mediterranean dialogue. We in the group are firmly convinced that our relations with the Arab and Islamic world need to be put on a firmer footing. We must not allow ourselves to treat terrorism and the Arab and Islamic world as if they were one and the same thing, and should do everything possible, in North Africa in particular, to create a society in which conditions are such that young people do not emigrate, but have a future in their own homeland. Mr President Aznar, both you and Commission President Prodi spoke about the enlargement of the European Union. I wish to thank you for your active involvement, as a representative of the southern part of the European Union, in the issue of the accession of the countries of Central Europe, and also of course Cyprus and Malta. My group has expressly mandated me to state that we consider it irresponsible for a head of government, in this case the German Federal Chancellor, to make enlargement conditional on the results achieved in negotiations on the agriculture chapter with regard to payments. We consider this irresponsible because it does damage to confidence in the European Union in the candidate countries, the end result being that anti-European feeling in these countries is intensified. We therefore urge you and request you... (Interruption) ... no, you do not like hearing that said, but I am telling the truth, and if you were to criticise that, my dear sir, you would make yourself rather more credible than you do by interrupting! (Applause) Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, you have also committed yourself to contending for the Stability Pact, and we will also say here that it is on stability that confidence in the common European currency is founded. Whether the country concerned is large or small, any violation by it of the Stability and Growth Pact must mean that a warning letter is actually sent and received, and I call on us all to defend the stability of the European currency. You spoke about the Convention. I strongly welcome that, and we advocate Community solutions to be worked out by the Convention. It has been possible, under the Spanish Presidency, to take a great step forward with the Interinstitutional Agreement on Foreign, Security and Defence Policy, yet there are now rumours to the effect that the General Secretariat of the Council is absolutely unwilling to classify certain documents. I hope this will not result in our ending up being denied documents, but rather that what has been agreed will actually be delivered, as the Spanish Presidency has managed to do. We have a great deal of faith in the expected Interinstitutional Agreement, the conclusion of which is being worked on at a high level, not only by experts, but also by politicians, in order to bring about genuinely better lawmaking in the European Union. Mr Aznar, I wish to conclude by congratulating you on the reform of the Council, which is going in the right direction; I believe it is on this basis that we should carry on working in the future. On behalf of our group, I thank you for a successful presidency, and we have confidence in the Spanish government and in Spain's Prime Minister that under the Danish Presidency we will be able to continue along the road on which we have travelled for the past six months. In this spirit, I wish you and all of us great success for the next six months in this European Union in which we share. (Applause)

Political group: PPE-DE