Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, nobody is left unaffected by the danger of war in Iraq. I know nobody who would not rather see a peaceful solution in Iraq. Among democrats, such a thing should be self-evident. Our own willingness to seek peace will not, though, on its own be sufficient; we also have to do something about it. This is where Europe has become less important. Over the past weeks and months, we have failed to maintain and build on the crucial role we once had as the USA's partner. It is unfortunate that my government – the government of the Federal Republic of Germany – has played a substantial part in bringing this about. The prospect of an election victory led Germany's Federal Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, to whip up fear of war, and for the sake of that victory he has ended up dividing Europe, NATO, and – it almost seems – the United Nations. He has done nothing to get Saddam Hussein to take seriously the pressure from the United Nations, and that means that we now have to make it clear that what interests us is a real peace, leaving no room – and let me say this loud and clear – for despots who enslave their own people, destabilise a whole region, and who both possess and manufacture dangerous weapons of mass destruction. Europe still does not speak with one voice in matters of foreign policy – indeed, it does so less now than ever before. We are further away than ever from having a common foreign and security policy. That is why Europe needs the United States of America as a guarantor of peace and freedom in the world. It was not Europe that put an end to genocide in the Balkans; were it not for the USA, the war criminal Slobodan Milosevic would not be in the dock in The Hague. It is not Europe that is in a position to contain the conflict between India and Pakistan. It is not Europe that is able to take up positions in North Korea in defence of our security. On its own, Europe does not have the capacity to combat international terrorism. To be sure, the US administration is not always convincing in its presentation of American policy, and the exclusive concentration on weapons of mass destruction was certainly ill-advised, in that it shifts the burden of proof, leaves the initiative to the weapons inspectors and – in the final analysis – to Saddam Hussein, and puts the USA and its supporters in a defensive position. What is a fact, though, is that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the peace of the world. On this continent of ours, we have often had to deal with despots whose intentions were apparent from the outset, as are those of Saddam Hussein. It is a lamentable fact that, in Iraq, terror, torture and murder are arbitrary and a part of daily life. It is a fact that many questions have still not yet been answered. Does Iraq possess the smallpox virus? What was done with the mustard gas grenades? Where are the highly dangerous VX nerve gas, the large quantities of anthrax, the 6 500 bombs carrying chemical weapons, and the mobile weapons laboratories? No less important than getting answers to these questions is the need to give some thought to the region's future. Here lies Europe's great mission. I call on the foreign ministers to join with the Commissioner in developing models for dealing with this region's future and for relations with it.

Political group: PPE-DE