Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, even though the vote in the Security Council has not yet, as we speak, taken place, we already know that, whatever happens, it will leave only one legal option open, namely the peaceful option of disarming Iraq via the inspections. Anyone who took it upon themselves to go beyond that mandate and to start a war unilaterally would be defying the whole of the international community. I hope that they would be calling upon themselves exemplary political penalties exacted by their own peoples. As for their credibility in the eyes of the world, it would no doubt be adversely affected for a long time. To show too much of one’s 'hard power' is to run the risk of ruining one’s 'soft power'. Unfortunately, it is the whole of international society that would run the risk of being destabilised by this material breach of the rules which democracies laid down for themselves after the Second World War. Yet this is precisely what the President of the United States is envisaging quite shamelessly. It is not only the war on Iraq that should spur us into action, but also the unilateralist – and in our view imperialist – policy that surrounds that war. When it comes to taking action, we are short of neither trump cards nor allies. Never, since the end of the cold war, has there been, on a world-wide scale, such a powerful camp clearly in favour of peace and promoting the law and multilateral cooperation. It is within that camp that the voice of Europe promoting world solidarity must and will have to make itself heard. Our allies are, first of all, the people of the entire world, starting with those of the European Union, not just the 15 current Member States, but the 25 present and future Member States. This makes even more legitimate our demand for in-depth discussion between Member States and with our partners, before the ratification of the accession treaties and the vote on the future constitution and on the vision of Europe which we intend to promote together in order to respond to the will expressed by our fellow citizens. This unprecedented explosion of public opinion has, no doubt, made it easier for a large majority of the governments of the world to take a stand against the war, starting with the governments of the countries of the South, and, in particular, the Non-Aligned Movement, which alone represents two thirds of the United Nations General Assembly. That is our second trump card. In that respect, how despicable and crass is the blackmail used by Colin Powell on the most dependent of those countries in order to try to extract from them a vote without any popular support! We are also supported by all of what the world regards as great moral authorities, such as Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, former President Carter and the Secretary General of the United Nations in person, Kofi Annan, all of whom have committed themselves with passion and dignity to the cause of peace and respect for the United Nations Charter. Let us also pay homage to all those authorities on international law who teach at Oxford, Cambridge or the London School of Economics and those three hundred eminent Spanish legal authors, who all deny that there is any legal justification for the use of military force against Iraq even before the event. Another important dimension is the contribution of the weapons inspectors, who have shown great firmness towards Baghdad while, at the same time, standing up to Washington and London, which they have not been slow to accuse of having given them false information. I should also like to make special mention of those men and women working for the UN agencies, who are often, along with certain European representatives in the region, the only ones to think first and foremost of the people of that region, and of the torment that is being imposed on them in Iraq, in Palestine, and in the Arab world in general. Thanks are also due to Mr Patten for some of the strong and just words that he spoke on the subject this morning. Another influential player on the scene today is the Franco-German alliance, which will have held good, even though it means paying the price of political courage in the face of a greater power. As for other allies, it was on the other side of the Atlantic that we found them. We, that is to say the diverse delegation of Members of the European Parliament who had already visited Baghdad last month, have just established, at the US Congress, long-term cooperation links with the elected representatives of Washington, Ohio, California and even Texas. There, you have a United States which does not despise Europe, but which places its hopes in Europe and welcomes its representatives with open arms. What, then, did our US friends tell us? They told us that 126 elected representatives voted against war, notably two thirds of the Democrat representatives; that 130 US cities, including Washington, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, have adopted resolutions opposing military action, that AFL-CIO, the major group of affiliated trade unions, has declared itself to be of the same opinion, and that the anti-war movement (United for Peace and Justice, Women for Peace, etc.) is receiving unprecedented support prior to the start of the conflict. The New York Times, too, has chosen to say no to war. This is a far cry from the sacred union that some people have been telling us about. Congressman Dennis Kucinich, the spokesman for the coalition for peace, echoed these sentiments when he told us, ‘George W. Bush has threatened to isolate those Europeans who are resisting his claim to supremacy; this is a perfect moment to take one another by the hand’. Finally, Mr President, may we each have the US friends that we deserve.

Political group: GUE-NGL