Mr President, in addition to expressing my agreement with the content of Mr Esteve’s speech, I should firstly like, on behalf of our group and also on behalf of my party, Eusko Alkartasuna – one of the governing parties of the Basque Country along with our colleagues from the Basque Nationalist Party – to express our clear and wholehearted rejection of terrorism and especially today, in the wake of the criminal outrage that has been committed in Catalonia. We regret that unequivocal repudiations and constructive proposals do not, however, go hand in hand, as proved by the declaration that has already been discussed and which has been presented by several groups to the exclusion of others and without open debate. We naturally respect the freedom of individuals and political groups to make statements, but forcing us to reject dialogue, and for a large number of reasons, is something we cannot accept. In the first place, this is because we, like Mo Mowlam, firmly believe that dialogue is the best way to resolve violent conflicts in whatever part of the world, and, in the second place, because we cannot be inconsistent with declarations made by Parliament on previous occasions, a few of which I shall mention here. A few days ago in Strasbourg, President Nicole Fontaine herself made reference to all of the democrats of Europe, men and women alike, and especially the Basque Country in Spain, which, in her view, continues to believe in political dialogue, despite the climate of terror that exists. Where would Lionel Jospin, François Bayrou or our fellow Member of the European Parliament and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, John Hume, as well as all those in favour of the Irish peace process be if they accepted proposals that condemned dialogue? Where would Commissioner Reding stand as a result? I shall not quote from the text, but the Commissioner’s report on terrorism presented to Parliament in 1997 is there for consultation. When we talk about a serious European conflict we cannot consider it lightly and simply content ourselves with rhetorical and repeated statements, without attacking the root causes underlying all of these problems and without trying, together, to find a solution. Parliament needs to be in a position to promote initiatives that will put an end to this cruel violence afflicting the Basque Country, and which will help find new paths of dialogue, especially between the Basque democratic forces. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although all groups, including ours, must be self-critical, it is now time we set to work and, above all, attempted to combat such a serious problem as terrorism from solid foundations, the maximum consensus possible and, of course, in the knowledge that dialogue has been, is and will always be the most valued method for achieving peace and reconciliation. We could have presented an alternative text here, but this would have been a serious mistake because in our view, resolving a matter as serious and important as this requires us to do everything that we can, except to put forward proposals that divide Parliament. Allow me, if you will, to make a small personal confession. Thirty years ago at the height of the Franco dictatorship in 1970, I was in prison for championing freedoms and at that time I was against ETA. Like any human of integrity and intelligence, I am prepared to learn, but let me tell you this; I do not accept lessons in how to stand firm against terrorism. I shall end, Mr President, by recalling the words of Jorge Luís Borges when he wrote “Around 500 years before the Christian era, the greatest thing to happen in the history of the world occurred in Greece – the discovery of dialogue. Faith, certainty, dogmas, anathemas, prayers, prohibitions, orders, taboos, tyrannies, wars and glories overwhelmed the order of things. Out of this, some Greeks acquired – we shall never know how – the singular habit of conversing.” Without those Greeks, Western culture would be inconceivable. If only today we were able to hold on to that great value of global culture that is dialogue, without prejudice to the greatest strength of our democratic convictions and the outright rejection of terrorism, and do so despite the latest painful, sad and abhorrent murder, even during the most difficult times and in the face of our most stubborn and murderous enemies. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE