Mr President, first of all, allow me to say that, once again, I consider this Parliamentary procedure whereby the Commissioner speaks after three speakers and the Minister after seven, as if to say that all those who will speak from now onwards are not even worthy of an answer, to be strange. Having said that – I do not agree with it but I abide by it – I shall speak particularly about the Watson report, which proposes a useful, appropriate initiative to regulate the security side of future summits of any kind. The proposal started off, it must be said, in decidedly lifeless tones as regards an objective analysis; then the tone improved along the way. This is just the opposite of what happened with a parallel initiative for the fight against terrorism, which arose out of the emotional response to 11 September and then all of a sudden became an opportunity not only to produce a European arrest warrant but more especially to cause a real witch-hunt within Italian politics. But the leader of my Group, Mr Tajani, will speak at greater length on this. I return now to the Watson report, which proposes the requirement of agreeing public order measures for major summit meetings. A truly appropriate idea, I was saying: it is a pity that it should have become both an excuse for preparing a summary trial of the events at previous Summits, and especially a Trojan horse in its attempts at party political speculation in a decidedly national vein. This has all come about through instrumental amendments, in the form of direct attacks on the Italian Government and its President. Not just this, but it also reiterates a defamatory action, as has already been mentioned, against the Italian forces of law and order, which are accused of serious offences and Gestapo-like behaviour that have never been proved in the numerous inquiries that have so far been opened. This, then, amongst other things, violates the Italian State’s legitimate autonomy and sovereignty to deal with public order issues. To those Members who still confuse the limits between national sovereignty and Community competences I say quite plainly – but still calmly – that it is time to stop doing the dirty washing of national politics in the European Parliament, but it is also time to put an end to the widespread sport of misusing points of order and questions in order to provoke improper debates and vitriolic attacks on persons rather than on ideas and political positions. I say this particularly to the Italian left-wing Members, the diligent supporters who regularly find room to express themselves in this House and also in the newspapers, thanks to the work of partisan reporters with little objectivity. Fortunately most of Parliament has understood this. In the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, almost all the amendments from the left were rejected. I propose that Parliament should do the same in its plenary session, and to make it quite clear I shall indicate the dangerous points: Amendment Nos 22, 25 and 29 are real chemical weapons against the truth. They should be rejected, otherwise I shall be forced to ask my coordinator to vote against this report.

Political group: PPE-DE