Mr President, allow me to begin by highlighting the work of both the rapporteur and Mrs Echerer, the draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. I have had the opportunity to work with the rapporteur in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and it has been an honour for me to chair the committee that voted for Mrs Echerer’s excellent opinion. Mr President, we are facing a situation which is real problem: the progressive disappearance of internal borders means that non-EU citizens in both legal and illegal situations are moving freely amongst the Member States. If we are going to be realistic, this is a problem which, as the two rapporteurs have stressed, we must deal with fully, and, I might add, as a matter of urgency. My view of the Finnish initiative is much less critical than theirs. I believe we should stress the fact that the Finnish initiative was a very significant step forward from the moment it was put on the table, because it led the Council to get involved in a very urgent issue. In other words, at the time, the Finnish initiative played a fundamental role, and we might say that it has died as a result of its own success. The thinking behind the Finnish initiative means that its proposals no longer have any point, because they have now been fully adopted. What we need now is not a provocative initiative which points its finger at the problem and starts a debate, but rather we need to get down – calmly but immediately – to resolving this problem. Apart from that, I agree with many of the criticisms that have been made. I also agree with one which has been made implicitly but which has not been stated directly. We, as a legislating institution, cannot amend just any text; there are texts which are not amendable and texts which require a complete amendment. This is what we have done in the case of the Finnish initiative, at least in the PPE Group. We welcome the courage of the Finnish initiative, but we believe that this initiative will not seriously enable us to carry out the responsibilities that the European public has entrusted to us. Why not? For the reasons which have been expressed, and which I would probably just be repeating: this initiative takes account of one aspect, the most repressive one, but that is only one aspect of the problem. What we need now, given the developments since Tampere, is a more global vision. The rapporteur is absolutely right to point out that this initiative does not take account of questions of procedure, or fundamental guarantees for the procedure, nor does it provide the necessary protection for the fundamental rights of those people who will be caught up in this type of procedure. Finally, it has not been pointed out – and I think it is important that it is – that what we do in this area must be coherent with the Member States’ principles regarding readmission of third country nationals. All these types of bilateral agreement that are required are being negotiated. The PPE has presented two amendments which I hope this House – to take up what the two previous speakers have said – will support in tomorrow’s vote, thereby sending a political signal, and we ask the Commission to present a complete and coherent text sooner rather than later.

Political group: PPE-DE