Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply which contains new and very important information for us. The situation we are talking about is extremely serious. A nuclear vessel, suffering a fault classified as serious, is going to be repaired in a small port which is not equipped for the purpose, when more than 300 thousand people live in the vicinity. And the decisions on repairs and safety are to be taken by a government which is foreign to those inhabitants. There is no way that this situation can be treated as a bilateral affair between two Member States which belong to a political union. The Commission, in its clear response two months ago and in its reply today, has been responsible enough to recognise this, although it has not been recognised in the Group of the European People’s Party’s motion for a resolution, a fact which, together with other trivialisations of the affair, has prevented us from supporting it. Commissioner, with this same sense of responsibility, the Commission must exercise its powers and not hide them behind an approach of diplomatic prudence and submissiveness towards the Council. I am not being alarmist, I am not against nuclear energy, I would never defend, as I believe nobody in Spain would, the idea of a submarine being moved at any cost if that meant an increased risk, but it is not in the spirit of European democracies, nor of the European Union Treaty, for decisions to be taken which jeopardise human safety and cause a population to be put at risk for the sake of greater technical, budgetary and diplomatic comfort. Until now, despite the information provided by Mr Patten, the citizens have not been aware of the risks in scientific terms, the date of repair or what the repairs are going to consist of. They are not aware of any plans in the case of a radiological emergency and they do not know whether moving the submarine presents more risks than repairing it there. Can the Commission allow a situation such as this? I am not turning this into a matter of national honour, nor is this the moment to condemn the territorial anachronism represented by Gibraltar. This specific issue is more serious than all that, since it affects hundreds of thousands of human beings on Community territory, not only Spaniards, but people of all nationalities and British people in particular. We believe that these citizens have found the protection which is their right in their most modest territorial representation, that is to say, their local authorities. In fact, the municipal and social representatives of those citizens are with us today. Whether or not they have found that protection in their national government is a matter for the Spanish Parliament. A debate is taking place there, but the citizens, on the basis of their knowledge or intuition, are turning their attention to the European institutions. It is the responsibility of those institutions that the citizens, in relation to the European Union, should stop thinking simply in terms of when their agricultural subsidies will arrive or when their Community funding will arrive and start thinking about what degree of safety the Community institutions can offer them. I therefore ask you to adopt the proposals contained in the joint motion for a resolution which will be voted on first, or at least those proposed by the Socialist Group. In any event, I trust that the Commission will not only fulfil its obligations but that it will persuade the two Member States involved to fulfil theirs.

Political group: PSE