Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the , I would also like to express our most heartfelt and sincere condolences at the death of the United Nations special envoy, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, as well as the deaths, as the President said yesterday, of this Parliament’s collaborators and members of families of our officials, and also to the families of all those who have lost their lives. We are facing a situation in which the devastating fire which destroyed the UN headquarters in Baghdad and also the murder by means of car bombs of the Shi’ite religious leader, Mohamed Baquer al Hakim, are part of a terrorist fight, but also of something which could be compared to a resistance and, at a time when everything that happened before the war is being reconsidered, we must be aware that what is required in Iraq is not more besieged troops, but to seek a timetable for the country to be reconstructed, and reconstructed, furthermore, with the involvement of the Iraqis. It is true that we do not have to return to the past, but there are certain principles that we believe still to be valid, and the first is the defence of multilateralism above all else in today’s world, and also our commitment. In this regard, what is becoming increasingly clear is that the doctrine of pre-emptive attack is a doctrine which we questioned and which has been shown to be entirely useless in terms of resolving the problems of Saddam Hussein’s tyranny. The Bush administration’s lack of preparation for dealing with the post-war situation is surprising. Where is Secretary of State Powell’s exit strategy? Our question in the European Union, and I say this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on the eve of the informal meeting to be held next weekend, should be how we can act jointly as the European Union, not by means of generic appeals, but of commitments. There is an initial point which has been clear from the outset and which has yet to be fulfilled, and that is that the four European states on the Security Council must act jointly, and that must be achieved. Until that happens we will be divided and it is important that we take that step because, as well as our international commitments, we have much at stake in the resolution of this crisis. Like Commissioner Patten and the President-in-Office of the Council, I welcome the humanitarian efforts being made by ECHO. It is very important for the Iraqis and also to demonstrate our commitment, but, in any event, what is being considered – and what we Europeans must resolve – is the approach to the future. This problem of the so-called chain of command, particularly in a situation in which the Budget Office of the United States Congress says that they cannot run to the presence of troops beyond March 2004, and also at a time when the US administration is presenting a new resolution to the Security Council. The issue is very clear: we cannot ask for supplementary efforts while maintaining the current situation of occupying forces with a chain of command essentially led by one country. If we believe in multilateralism, if we believe in a serious commitment on the part of the European Union to the United Nations and the international community, we must propose sharing responsibilities, replacing the occupation approach with one of returning sovereignty to the Iraqis. And this requires a very clear and precise timetable and also requires a joint effort involving us Europeans and, also in a very direct way, the Arab countries, in order to achieve something which erases the image of an unacceptable form of neocolonialism. I therefore believe, Mr President, that it is positive that we are going to the conference of donors – we must change the current thinking according to which the booty is being distributed amongst the friends of the occupiers – and we must be able to respond as the European Union. I hope that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy will prepare a recommendation which we can vote for unanimously, or at least by a majority, during the second September part-session.

Political group: PSE