Mr President, I have stepped into Mrs Hazan’s shoes. This is unfortunate for you, but I hope you will excuse me and excuse her. On the eve of the Laeken Summit, Mrs Hazan said she was very pleased to have the opportunity to present this report on the Union’s priorities and policy objectives for external relations in the field of justice and home affairs and to play a larger part in this debate on the progress made in relation to the area of security, freedom and justice since the Tampere Summit. The Union is at a crossroads. We must not arrive late for this rendezvous that is so crucial and strategic to its future unless we want to end up one day with our back to the wall. Moreover, we now have an opportunity to examine the degree to which the Member States are willing to put justice and home affairs in the forefront of the Union’s policies. That is the purpose of this report, which highlights the need to fully integrate issues relating to asylum, immigration, justice and police cooperation, i.e. issues of very direct concern to our fellow citizens. With that in mind, all the Member States will have to take global, integrated and inter-pillar action. We must also stress the fact that hitherto the European Union has taken too little action in this field, which is still in its early days. This kind of report must be seen above all as providing food for thought on the added value of deepening the area of security, freedom and justice that is at the very heart of the Union, so that the Union can be prepared to meet the challenges of an external policy in this field. It is up to us to establish the necessary instruments, a lack of which has meant that we have hitherto been unable to respond to our partners’ demands. Some of these objectives have been listed. They concern the following areas: combating all forms of organised crime, forming a common front against terrorism, coordination amongst Member States and candidate countries as regards training for the judiciary and police authorities, establishing a co-development policy, establishing close forms of cooperation with third countries in fighting racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, establishing a strong link between immigration policy and development aid policy, the need to adopt a common asylum policy containing minimum standards for the reception and temporary protection of asylum seekers. This is a difficult task, which will take a long time and calls for complex international negotiations. By that token we must give the Union a mandate to take action to achieve this, by supporting the Commission proposals that do and will play their part in establishing this kind of coherent framework. In this sort of situation, we have to be bold enough to put our foot on the accelerator and ensure that decisions that are still blocked in the Council can enter into force. Obstacles do exist and we must do our best to overcome them. We must not overlook the human implications of these problems. Current events remind us of that, with the terrible tragedy of the eight refugees, including three children, found dead in a container in Ireland last Saturday. We also remember the 58 victims found at Dover in June 2000. I hope it will not take other tragedies of this kind for our States to realise how important it is to make progress in these areas. The Council must, of course, assume its responsibilities, because what is happening here is the result of its overcautious approach. Similarly, we must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed by any one country – I am referring to Italy – but I believe that yesterday’s events have changed things and Mrs Hazan cannot have known about this last night. In this regard, the tragic events of 11 September make it even more necessary for us to look at these matters from a long-term point of view. We must not now adopt an overly hasty position out of a sense of urgency. On the contrary, only if Europe is equipped with instruments that are permanent, operational and coordinated to a similar degree can it exert its influence on the international scene and impose its vision of humanism and the protection of individual freedoms. Lastly, we emphasise that Parliament must be able to exercise control over external policy and justice and home affairs policy by means of periodic consultation regarding the overall strategy pursued. Let me point out that this is not so much a question of making unrealistic and well-meaning proposals and but rather of analysing the situation objectively, which means we must look at this external dimension as a key part of our policy. The progress made since Tampere is not very encouraging. Whose fault is that? It is certainly not the fault of the Commission, which is making a great effort to achieve these objectives. Instead, we should criticise the Council, which tends too often to put off the adoption of specific measures again and again, and the unanimity rule governing these areas, which blocks their adoption. Once again, none of this is new, as you know, since this question was also raised at the Tampere Summit. Today, we must seize the moment... (The President cut the speaker off)

Political group: PSE