Mr President, on behalf of our group I should like to give vent to our anger, our bitterness and our strong condemnation of the serious violation of the international law of the UN Charter by all the countries that are embarking upon this war. To my alarm I discover that some in this Parliament are willing to accept political responsibility. Had we not, I thought, actually agreed that we wanted to work through the Security Council? That we wanted to give our backing to Kofi Annan, Hans Blix and the weapons inspectors in the attempt to disarm Saddam? That we wanted Saddam before the International Court of Justice? Wonderful! – but, then, this was to be done via the Security Council. Now we see that the Security Council route is no longer being followed, a unilateral step to war has been taken and I hear of some who are willing to accept political responsibility for this. My group, and I hope the majority of this Parliament, is not willing to accept any political responsibility for this. This means that we in this House call on all the Member States, all the governments of Europe, to make neither political nor military contributions to this war. (Applause from the left) Mr President, this means that, while the disarmament approach was beginning to bear fruit and Hans Blix and Kofi Annan were urging the international community to respect international law, this international law has today been dealt a heavy blow. That has to be said first. Of course we are together responsible for reconstruction, of course we are together on the side of international law and the multilateral approach. Which is why we also say and I say here that Europe must not be the victim of the Pax Americana of the US. We must again seek new unity within Europe. We must again seek that one voice, and that one voice is one of conflict prevention, one of contribution to international law and the multilateral approach. It is also the voice that again and again will ultimately accept the responsibility worldwide for that international dialogue, for dialogue within Islam and, from our world, for cooperation with the Arab world, but as my group chairman Enrique Barón Crespo rightly said: ‘The flower of war is a damned poor way to start this dialogue’. (Applause from the left) Starting from that basic thought, Mr President, I want to say here again that our Member States, if we feel that we need a common approach, should adhere to the articles in our Community Treaty. Then in spite of all the differences we must also actually seek that common ground. That common ground was and is the Security Council, is international law and can never be a unilateral step. Our common demand is, of course, that the war be limited. It is, of course, for Europe to be strengthened. It is, of course, for efforts within the reality that we are experiencing today to ensure that we again take international initiatives. The President-in-Office, Mr Papandreou, has rightly said that today with the leaders we will again have to think up measures. But also try to hear the voice of our peoples in Europe, who this time are ahead of our leaders, who have understood what kind of Europe they want. As you are together as leaders today, respect this voice of the European population and realise that this voice stands on the side of peace and international law. The United States, Mr President, may be capable of starting a war unilaterally, but neither the United States, nor any other individual country, is able unilaterally to bring about permanent peace in this world. For this we need a strong Europe and a strong United Nations. I hope that our European leaders will hear this voice today. (Applause from the left)

Political group: PSE