Mr President, I would like to start by thanking you for holding this debate, this extraordinary sitting. A similar sitting was held at the start of the first Gulf War. Mr President, Mr Bush’s declaration of war is illegal. The British Government is just splitting hairs in its pathetic attempts to justify military attack. The United Nations has not failed. It has represented the view of world public opinion correctly. The existing procedures, with all their limitations, would have been more than sufficient to prevent the outbreak of war, to ensure the continuation of the inspections, and we are convinced that they would have brought about the disarmament of Saddam Hussein and – why not – his trial by an international court too, if only the United States and the United Kingdom had abided by the rules, (Applause) if only the other US vassal States, especially the current and future Members of the Union, had given the law precedence over gratitude towards the United States, which is understandable but belongs to a bygone age and was owed, in particular, to a much higher calibre administration than that currently in power. The future heralded by tonight’s attack is a future of war. We are all wondering who is next on the list in President Bush’s electioneering programme, for his list has nothing to do with the violation of international law or Security Council resolutions. In 35 years, at least 106 resolutions have been violated: 31 by Israel, 23 by Turkey, 18 by Morocco, 16 by Iraq and so on. This completely arbitrary action, the lack of credibility of President Bush’s speeches on democracy and the law now leave us bewildered and require us to act. We are not Americans, we are Europeans, and today we must face up to the fact that a mockery has been made not just of international law but of European law too. We believe that all the provisions of the Treaty have equal status and must be respected, including Article 19, which compels the European members of the Security Council to uphold the positions and interests of the Union. This they have clearly failed to do. (Applause) We would like the Commission, the guardian of the Treaties, and Parliament to say so loud and clear. The European Union, Commissioner Patten, cannot be reduced to a humanitarian agency, (Applause) and Parliament cannot be reduced to a humanitarian agency advisory board. We consider that the United Kingdom and Spain’s support of an attack to which even their own public are opposed is rash, illegal and incomprehensible. (Applause) We feel that the inconsistent behaviour of the Italian Government, which is to hold the next Presidency of the Union, of which it is a founder Member, has added to the prevailing confusion, but we also feel that France and Germany have also violated Article 19 in failing to seek agreement with the 15 Member States or with the Greek Presidency, which has been attempting to establish a role worthy of that name for the European Union right from the beginning. We refuse to accept the choice now forced upon us by this situation: a choice between a position that is right but wholly ineffective, like the position of France and Germany, which failed to prevent war, and a position that is wrong, like that of the United Kingdom and Spain, which bewilders the people, facilitates war and paves the way for further wars. If the European Union had had a permanent seat in the United Nations, if it had been compelled by shared institutions and binding rules to adopt a unified position right from the start, we dare to believe even now that war would not have started last night. This is the challenge before us, before the Convention, although it does not always appear to be aware of the fact. There are, however, more urgent, pressing signals we must send out, and the first concerns the Middle East. Irrespective of the belated announcement on the roadmap, we do not believe that the Bush administration genuinely intends to bring about peace in the Middle East, to bring Israel’s military operations to an end. It will clearly be up to the European Union to make sure that the road map is genuinely implemented. Mr President, we are expecting an initiative in this regard. The second message concerns ourselves. It would be a serious, very serious mistake to postpone the Euro-Mediterranean Forum due to take place in Crete at the end of the month. That would be another unnecessary sign of impotence, which we really cannot afford at this time. (Applause)

Political group: Verts-ALE