EP Plenary session Debate with Angela MERKEL, German Federal Chancellor on the Future of Europe during the plenary session in Strasbourg (12-15/11/2018)  The following transcription is the result of an automatic process. Check Against delivery.

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

future of the European Union (T)

EU - Germany (T)

MERKEL, Angela (DE)

Debate on the Future of Europe: opening statement by Angela MERKEL, German Federal Chancellor (15:08 - 15:35)

SOUNDBITE (German), Angela MERKEL, German Federal Chancellor, Dear Antonio Tajani, Ppresident of the European Commission John Claude Juncker ladies and gentlemen members of the European Parliament. Commissioners ladies and gentlemen over 50 years ago about a harsh time the German president at the time described European unification as an exemplary experiment.

This was 10 years before the first direct elections to the European Parliament. At that time the European Community was still in its infancy. A lot of the achievements such as the internal market were visionary projects. But the foundations had been late and hundreds of years of wars and dictatorships for the citizens of Europe were over. And for the first time they had a stable and peaceful future ahead of them.

Today I'm here with joy but also with gratitude in front of the greatest Parliament of the world. We have 751 members from 28 countries representing over half a million people. Approximately 7 percent of the world's population. In this house we feel at the heart of democracy beating carried out by 28 countries. And this describes something which is very important about Europe its diversity. This is one of the greatest strengths of us in Europe because despite our diversity we have a commitment to unity to compromise.

Despite our different origins despite our different opinions and what we are doing here is to come to results which are to the benefit of our community. It's a year since I last spoke to this house in twenty seven. Germany took over the presidency of the council. I taught at that time about the diversity which brings us together which does not to separate us about the peace which we have to defend about the fact that we in Europe need to breathe good. And I talked about freedom and diversity being connected in Europe.

I spoke about tolerance. I also mentioned the fact that tolerance is the soul of Europe. It is an indispensible basic value for we Europeans. And last year we have experienced how much the world has changed and we have experienced also how the soul of Europe is being affected. The global political economic and technological challenge which we have to face moving forward at a more and more rapid pace. We have experienced a series of crisis. We have experienced international terrorism violent armed conflicts.

And my nation movements which have had a serious impact on us in Europe. And of course digital progress has considerably changed our lifestyles. We are experiencing the results of climate change and we are seeing our values called into question. The United Kingdom is a country which is soon going to leave the European Union. This is a deep wound. I think that turning now to Michel Barnier here for the work that he has done I think that we can all applaud him for it members of the European Parliament. We are all realizing that it is very difficult ever more difficult to balance development.

But also we are experiencing the fact that it's becoming more and more difficult to speak alone on the global stage to push our interests forward and thus it becomes even more important that we stand side by side as Europeans. And thus the European Union more than ever needs to respect both the interests of its own members and of others. We need to understand that tolerance is the soul of Europe that is is essential component of what makes us Europeans. And that only together with you can we develop to ensure that we also take account of the interests and needs of others as well as of our own.

That brings us to the core of European solidarity without which we cannot be successful. And this solidarity is based on tolerance. And it represents our strength as Europeans which we can find nowhere else. There are three reasons for this festival of solidarity is a universal value. We have to work for each other. It is essential recruiting a prerequisite for every operation for families for villages for sports associations as well as for a community such as the European Union Solidarity is a component of the European treaty.

It is a central feature of our values. It is a cornerstone of Europe. It supports economic development and also helps us combat youth unemployment. We faced. Either with terrorist attacks or other attacks on our values. We have the European crisis the so-called umbrella which was to cover us and help us and help to solve our financial problems. We have a few examples here which demonstrates how individual countries of European Union and citizens of the European Union are in difficulties. But they do not stand alone.

So we have a few examples of this. But on the other side of the coin we. Have. National issues which always have an impact on the community as a whole. Therefore secondly solidarity is always linked to commitments of the community and the principles based on the rule of law in my country the rights of the opposition and civil society are adversely affected if press freedom is curtailed.

But a state based on the rule of law and the rule of law in general is something which is not just national but is for all of us all of us throughout Europe for Europe of course can only operate properly and as a community which is based on law. When those laws are applied individually we try to deal with our problems and then we compromise the strength and stability of our euro because our common currency can only work properly if each individual member shares the responsibility who actually tries to jeopardize the agreement of Europe on individual issues for example human rights policies or others that is adversely affecting the entire European foreign policy.

And Europe can only be a voice to the world if it works together that means that solidarity ways means that we have to overcome national egotism and I am well aware of this. I am from Germany and I know that this has not always been the case. For example in the years before 2000 and 15 we took far too long to realize that the issue of refugees was an issue for the whole of Europe and not just for Germany.

And in order to understand we have to realize that this is a common European task. And thirdly using solidarity for everybody means that we have to deal with our own interests with a view to others. We have to respect others. But this is not something that contradicts looking after our own interests. Quite to the contrary. For example we need to work to combat migration problems with third countries. This is an issue whichMr. Tony owes or just brought up.

We have to at the same time ensure that people on the spot to have their living conditions improved because it is often because of difficult conditions at home that they flee towards Europe. Now looking at climate change this has economic and social consequences. It is crucial that we tackle this. It's useful for Europe. If. Industry and threshold countries produce less greenhouse gas and our whole system becomes screamer. But it is also important for all Europeans if they develop a better stability within the eurozone.

It's useful for all Europeans that if everybody participates in protection against a climate change it's going to help all Europeans. If we tackle together those who are affected by immigration accepting refugees by different member states on the basis of their democratic development and their own histories has triggered off different reactions. Solidarity means that we should do absolutely our utmost to find a common approach to tackle this and other subsequent results to work together as a community. So solidarity is a universal basic value. It is a responsibility for our community and solidarity is also in our own interests. The interests of our well-being so unity and determination are key for us. I would like to raise three issues which I feel are particularly important.

First of all foreign and security policy. As Europeans we notice that we can defend we can defend our interests when we work together. Only a stronger Europe is going to be able to defend its values and interests world wide and.

Times when we could rely on others our pastor. This means that we as Europeans now have to really take our fate fully into our own hands if we want to defend our community and that means that in the long term we in Europe have to develop our foreign policy mobile. We need to think this through. We need to try and do without people working on their behalf for the benefit of our citizens.

I have suggested that we establish a European security council with changing presidencies of the member states where decisions can be taken more rapidly. We have to create a European intervention force so that we can tackle issues immediately on the ground. We have already achieved cooperation in the military sphere. That is good. And we are going to continue to support this part. What we should do and this is really important if we look at the developments of the past year we have to work on a vision of one day creating a real true European army that was.

... some years ago already said that a common European army would show the world that they will never again be war in Europe. I'm not saying anything against NATO. Of course not. Can be a good supplement to nature. I. Leave a colleague and.

Colleagues it would be a lot easier to cooperate with us if we have more than 160 different weapons systems and the US has only 50 or 60. And if we had we realized that all the different instances need training and education. And if we could work together and pool our efforts together then we could work together with NATO with a European army.

These I'm really pleased about this. This is great. I'm annoying some people I'm going to follow it. So we need the common development of armament systems within Europe. And this of course means a difficult task for the Federal Republic of Germany because we are going to have to develop also a common European arms exports policy. Ladies and gentlemen let's now come on to the economic issues. This is the basis of our strength and is the prerequisite for our position in the world.

Because if we're not economically strong we're not going to be politically strong. And I am very pleased to have looked at it Jean-Claude Juncker Plan the investment fund which has had a considerable impact over the past few years and has 500 billion euros invested up until 2020 350 are already in the pipeline and a good program for better investment is something which is really important. We've been working on it for a long time and I think we should be talking about this now.

The 350 million are a real contribution to improving prosperity in Europe and of course to a stable and stable Europe with well-being for its citizens also needs a stable economy. We need to develop our our monetary policy better we're working on a banking union. Germany and France have already made.

Statements on this. And I think that we need to link very closely to the midterm. And F F on this. We have to look at responsibility and control a banking union. And then later a European insurance system. And this is something which is going to reduce the risks of national country of national country governments. Because of course what we're looking at here is something which is two sides of the same coin. But here the European Council at least Germany's on board together with France it's going to be able to make more progress. We've had intensive discussions over the past few days on digital taxation for example you've participated in that.

I know Germany is not asking whether we feel that this goes without saying but the question is how are we going to do this. And I think that what is important democratically is to take the comments of the commission onboard and to look at how in an international context we can also get an international solution.

We are looking at a minimum taxation but if that doesn't work we can't wait forever. We are going to have to work on it in Europe independently. We are honest with ourselves and if we look into the future and think about our lifestyle and well-being we have to realize that it is not the same today as it was a hundred or 150 years ago that inventions always came from Europe. But a lot of inventions and innovations that now come from Asia and from the United States.

And then of course we have to put the question to ourselves as to how on our continent we are going to determine the mobility of the future. We have to look at the fact that for example Chinese companies are investing in Germany. That's fine. But I want to make sure that we are stronger in Europe and that we want to be able to master the innovative technologies of the future.

We have got the European instruments for this. We've got everything before us. Got to look at quantum computing. We've got to look at the development of artificial intelligence. And this is still possible because we have a strong industrial basis in Europe that we can build upon. We have to avail ourselves of that and research and innovation are therefore a central focal points for our future well-being. And the third area clinics which I should like to refer to is immigration and refugees.

During our crisis we had to overcome many hurdles and come to a common solution. But we've been successful in many areas. But the issue of immigration is something which has not yet brought Europe together as I would like it to. This is a real core topic an issue which reflects our relationship with our neighbors and we've got to find common approaches. We have made progress and we all agree that we need a European border protection force. But perhaps the saying that we have an area with free movement and then start working on who comes in who comes out. Then we find out that we are infringing the principles that once again it's true that we've developed Frontex the commission's proposals in my opinion.

] But if everybody wants to retain their international responsibilities and doesn't want to give anything away they can be as big as good as they want to be but they won't be able to do what they have to we have to work on this together we also have to think through development aid economic development and how we can participate they have excellent results compared to what we had two years ago because individual member states with the commission have been working in individual member states and have achieved more than they would do individually.

I think we can learn a lot from that. But this is just part of the way down the road. And I think therefore we also need to develop a European a common European asylum policy if everybody takes their decisions individually then nobody can be surprised that countries from a particular country know about a certain country immediately and then we get a secondary migration. We have to make an effort to ensure that we have the same common playing field for the internal market even on issues such as the right to asylum and humanitarian responsibilities. We have to deal with something we have to deal with these issues together.

We have to have a common policy. Ladies and gentlemen just giving you three examples of many that I could have come up with. The fact that I have really hit the nail on the head is demonstrated by the protest noises that I've been hearing. I think that what people want is that Europe really tackles these difficult problems. These burning problems we need to tackle the issues which are facing us.

But this doesn't mean that Europe has to be everywhere not every problem in Europe is a European problem.Solidarity means that Europe deals with things where it is necessary and when it does so it does that in a decisive effective manner. I think Europe gives us our best chance to lasting peace and lasting well-being and a safe and secure future in Paris at the invitation of the French presidency when we think that the first world war came to an end.

A hundred years ago once again we should think through what happens if countries don't have a respect for each other and what happens if countries and the associations the League of Nations in those days collapses therefore we should not give up our European opportunity because if we do we shall. Adversely affect not just ourselves but the younger generation.

Nationalism and egotism should no longer have a position in Europe tolerance and solidarity represent our common future. And colleagues it is well well worth fighting for them. Thank you.