Mr President, 1999 was the year of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, of the communitisation of the Schengen Agreement and of the Extraordinary Tampere Council. These have been the most important moments in the Council’s expression of its political will to establish an area of freedom, security and justice in the European Union. The Council has decided to draw up a charter of citizens’ rights – and we rejoice in this; it has decided to implement Article 13 of the Treaty, combating all forms of discrimination and xenophobia, and it has decided to approximate the laws on conditions for admission and residence, as well as guaranteeing residents treatment which is fair and on an equal footing with the citizens of the Union. It has also reached a political agreement – and we congratulate them on this – on the initial proposals for civil cooperation. This has been the year in which policies on justice and home affairs have been provided with a Community framework. They have been put into the hands of a single Commissioner, Mr Antonio Vitorino, and we congratulate them on this as well. Furthermore, they have taken on the task of creating a “scoreboard” to verify the progress made in this area at Community level, but also – and this seems to me to be important – at the level of the Member States. We are pleased about this and we congratulate the Council on these decisions, despite the fact that, for this House, the Treaty of Amsterdam included one disappointment: that of delaying, for five years, our role, our ability to participate actively, to democratically control this area of freedom, security and justice, as well as the role taken in it by the Court of Justice. However, if, on verifying the progress made during 1999, which is within the competence of this Parliament in accordance with the Treaty, we leave behind the stage of great declarations and look at the decisions actually taken and carried out, the scene looks considerably darker, Mr President. It is as if the Council had more than one face and two hands and what one signs up to, the other begrudges. Despite all the commitments made at the highest level, the Council did not manage to take the decisions which it had envisaged. Programmes multiply and overlap and there is no way of ascertaining levels of implementation and effectiveness or, at least, this Parliament is unable to do so. We have presented the Council with a series of questions and I know that it is the will of the Portuguese Presidency to answer each and every one of them. We hope that this presidency will mark the beginning of a change of attitude on the part of the Council towards this Parliament. I said that there was no consistency between the decisions taken by the Council and the policies actually carried out. There are doubts in my Group and doubts also persist in this House, for example, about something which should be good news: the incorporation of the Schengen Agreement into the Community framework. Schengen has been incorporated, as we said earlier, into the acquis, but it has been done with very little transparency. Not a single piece of information, nor a single consultation, has been addressed to Parliament during this process; neither on the association of the United Kingdom, nor on the incorporation of Greece, nor on the negotiations with Norway and Iceland. The same is true with regard to immigration policy. We have amused ourselves with a pile of reports, but we have no idea what has happened to these initiatives; they have disappeared. We hope that 2000 will be the year for action, in the same way that 1999 was the year for expectations. We hope that the Council will also make an effort to subject itself to the control of this Parliament. The Council has decided that justice and home affairs policy must form part of the structure of the Union. The Council can act in accordance with Parliament’s decisions, or it can continue to miserably begrudge its association with the other institutions in this vitally important project. If it chooses the second approach, it must be aware that this presents risks and that it will weaken the basis on which the area of freedom, security and justice is built. Alternatively, it could accept the offer of an agreement amongst the institutions, in order to move forward in another way. Fulfil your obligations to Parliament in a generous spirit, thus preparing for the future. Provide the Commission with the necessary resources and recognition essential for it to carry out its work and for it to verify the real progress made at Community level and at the level of the Member States, and we will be – and the Council will be – able to deal with the decisions made at Tampere and move towards a Union which is freer, more just and more secure. (Applause)

Political group: PSE