Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, last week we formally expressed our sympathies for all the victims of these attacks, who came from America, Europe and the whole of the world; we expressed our solidarity with the United States and, now, with pain but also with determination, we must respond to global terrorism, to this mixture of fanaticism and advanced technology which threatens our civilisation and our open, democratic and multicultural society. We must send a very clear message to our fellow citizens: terrorism can injure, it can kill, but no democracy has ever been destroyed by terrorism and that is our greatest strength. We must therefore work together: Parliament produced the Watson report, the Commission has speeded up its work and this week a Special Council has been called. I must stress that yesterday and today the President-in-Office of the Council, the Belgian Minister for External Affairs, Mr Michel, the High Representative for the CFSP, Mr Solana, and the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Patten, have taken part in debates in Parliament on this issue. I believe that we should welcome this willingness to participate, which increases transparency and communication. We Socialists must respond on the basis of one fundamental notion: the global response must be based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 of this year, which establishes that we must work together to bring the organisers, sponsors and perpetrators of the attacks and their accomplices to justice. This is the basis of the worldwide coalition which we are building with the United States, with the candidate countries, with Russia and with all the states of the world which share our universal values. I would add another point: the ratification of the International Criminal Court must be accelerated so that we may have a global instrument of justice in this very field. We must also work firmly and with perseverance, acting within the framework of a multidimensional policy which relates to what we are doing in the United Nations. This explains NATO’s decision to invoke Article 5. We must state that poverty, injustice or conflict are not causes which can justify barbarism. No conflict between East and West, between Islam and Christianity, between the traditional and the modern, can explain why killing innocent people can bring progress in the world. (Applause) I believe that the European Parliament, those of us sitting here from different peoples, of different beliefs, ideologies and religions, demonstrates that we Europeans have found a response to fanaticism and intolerance. What can be done to create our policy? A series of contributions have been made here. The Commission has brought forward certain measures and there are others which the Commission and the Council could activate more quickly. For example, they could speed up the implementation of the conclusions of the Tampere Summit and the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam, they could speed up the ratification of the international conventions against terrorism – and this also falls within the competence of the Member States – and in particular the convention for the suppression of terrorist funding. It must not be the case, as appears to be happening, that we are assisting in the funding of terrorist organisations through stock exchange speculation. There must also be increasing cooperation between intelligence services and a strengthening of Europol. Finally, Madam President – and this must be stressed – on the basis of the information given us by Mr Solana this morning, we must activate and pursue our policy of finding an opening, an opportunity, for peace in the Middle East, founded on the Mitchell report. Confidence-building measures must not be viewed as recompense, but rather such measures must be an integral part of this process. And we must do so jointly with the United States. We must send them the message that they should not hide behind imaginary shields, that they should share with us in the responsibility to achieve a world which lives in peace, justice, freedom and security. (Applause)

Political group: PSE