What are your group’s top priorities this Autumn?
We in the EPP group will be concentrating our efforts on ensuring that the services directive is formally adopted. This would be a major success for the Parliament and for our group because the Council has now taken on board the European Parliament’s position. Second, we want to get a result on the chemicals directive which ensures that economic and environmental considerations are balanced in a sensible way. But the directive must not harm the competitiveness of the European chemicals industry, as it would be a disaster for the EU if the chemical industry left Europe and went to other countries where the rules are different.
Another of our priorities is to ask the Commission only to make proposals which strengthen the competitiveness of the European economy, safeguard existing jobs and create new ones. We should reduce bureaucracy and costs and ensure that proposals are in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity, i.e. we should be checking to see whether new laws would not be better if they were made at national level.
Our third priority is engagement in the Middle East. It is a major step forward for European foreign and security policy that the EU and its member states are engaged militarily in the Middle East and Lebanon to bring stability to the region. This process must be accompanied by political efforts aimed at finding a peace settlement for the entire Middle East. That means the state of Israel within secure borders, and a Palestinian state also within secure borders, and a situation in Lebanon where responsibility is handed over to the government and the military. It is not acceptable to have a state within a state as is currently the case with the Hezbollah militia.
The fourth important question concerns immigration. We are facing a very serious situation in the Canaries and off the coast of Lampedusa, and other places where people are dying when they try and cross the Mediterranean or the Atlantic. We need a common border security policy and stronger co-operation with Africa.
That leads me on to our other priority. My group will be keeping up its efforts to maintain the substance and the principles of the EU constitution.
Do you think the European Parliament should be located only in Brussels?
There is a clear legal settlement. Strasbourg has the right laid down in the Treaty to 12 sessions a year, and this has been confirmed by the European Council. We should accept this and not lose sight of the fact that we need the support of the people in France to have the constitutional treaty adopted.
What should the EU do to get the African continent back on track?
We need strong co-operation between the African Union and the EU. Everything we do for Africa must be to help the Africans help themselves. Africans must develop their systems of government by themselves to increase democratisation and efficiency. What the EU is doing to promote democracy in Africa can be seen by the peacekeeping troops we have committed for the elections in Congo.
Will continuing enlargement and the stalled constitutional debate widen the gap between the EU and its citizens?
In 2004 we enlarged by ten countries; now the accession of Romania and Bulgaria is coming next, and that must be done successfully. We must however accept that many citizens in the EU are sceptical about further enlargement. That’s why it’s important that we strengthen the EU internally, and that’s why the EPP will be very active in working to adopt the principles and substance of the constitution. If we manage that, we will have a stable European Union. Croatia is far advanced along the road to membership, and the Balkan region as a whole has the perspective of joining the EU, even though it will take longer until the other countries are members. With Turkey, negotiations should go on and we should see how developments in Turkey progress.
What will Europe look like in 2020 in terms of political and economic power?
I would like the EU to be a strong, stable pillar of democracy in the world in the framework of a multilateral order. An EU with 500m people has to play a strong role in the world and should be a member of the United Nations Security Council. Our values are human dignity, democracy and the rule of law, and this should be the basis for representing our interests in the world. As to the European economy, we are in a period of globalisation with ever-stronger competition from other countries and regions around the world. We must adjust to that situation, and to do that we need more flexibility in our labour markets and we need to give our young people the best possible education.
What EU initiatives would boost innovation in the European economy?
Education and research should be given priority. We must increase our efforts so that highly qualified scientists shouldn’t have to leave the EU to work elsewhere. Rather the EU should be so attractive for scientists that they decide to stay here.