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Parliamentary Assembly
Assembleé Parlamentaire

MR VAN DER LINDEN,
PRESIDENT OF THE PARLAMENTARY ASSEMBLY,
SPEECH BEFORE MR CHAIRMAN PROF.CAPASSO,
PRESIDENT OF THE FONDAZIONE MEDITEERRANEO –
MAISON DE LA MEDITERRANEE

(Naples, 30 March 2007)


Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour to receive such a prestigious prize, in these beautiful surroundings impregnated by centuries of culture and history.

Being here today is like meeting a close friend who lives miles away but with whom you have so much in common and so much to share.
In the city of Strasbourg, a symbol of reconciliation between the French and German people after a devastating war, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is trying to bring ever closer 46 countries and over 800.000.000 citizen. We share common principles – human rights, democracy, rule of low – which are based on the universal values of peace, respect human life and human dignity.

Here, in the city of Naples, in the close vicinity of another tumultuous symbol, Mount Vesuvius, the Fondazione Mediterraneo is knitting a network of organisations, institutions, and individuals who all believe that the Mediterranean can be an area of peace and harmony. You are building a Coalition of Shared Values and Interests among the Mediterranean countries, to achieve progress in human rights protection, security, culture, economy, science, sustainable development, communication and information.
Through the elected representatives who sit in our Assembly, we try to get Europe to speak with one voice in order to promote dialogue, tolerance and better understanding. Through the experts, artists and scholars who participate in your Foundation, you are making this dialogue an everyday reality. Like everything in the Mediterranean, we are interconnected and independent.

I wish to pay a special tribute to Claudio Azzolini, who incarnates this interactivity
By being a Member of the Board of Directors of the “Fondazione Mediterraneo” and, at the same time, a distinguished member of our Parliamentary Assembly.

I personally believe that an international institution can only truly work for the benefit of its citizens if it involves actively the civil society.


Ladies and gentlemen,

The Mediterranean is so much a part of Europe that it is impossible to imagine the European identity without it. But the Mediterranean has also its own identity, which is much larger and which represents an extraordinary melting pot of cultures, religions, traditions and identities.

The Mediterranean is one of the richest and most complex embodiments of what God (nature and humanity) have created on Earth. Hardly any area on the globe compares to it in terms of the concentration of natural beauty, of pages of history that have been written, of treasures of artistic and scientific creation. At the same time, throughout its history, this area has been the arena for conflict and war.

However, the common feature of these two faces of the Mediterranean has always been human contact, interaction and cross-fertilization. The Mediterranean has always lived up its name, of a medium between lands and people. This is why the dialogue, in which both you and we are involved, is the only way to cross the see.

Over the last half a century, the Mediterranean has made huge progress as a whole towards respect of human rights, democracy and cooperation. However, it is far from being a place of bliss; it faces us with some of the most difficult challenged of the modern world. There are still armed conflicts, such as the one in the Middle-East; there is still barbed wire dividing neighbours, such as in Cyprus; the sea is an everyday scene of tragedies of people from Africa desperately trying to reach the European shores in the hope of a better life.

Between the two shores, there is still too much suspicion, misunderstanding, ignorance and prejudice. Economic misbalance and social disparities increase the incomprehension and distrust on both sides. The gap between the young and poor South and ageing rich North generate a chain of problems, beginning with illegal immigration from the South which, in turn, increasingly result in growing racism and xenophobia in the North. Terrorism is the worst expression of what happens when people do not want to listen to each other.


Ladies and gentlemen

The Assembly has always been promoting peace, democratic stability and sustainable development of Mediterranean. Euro-Med cooperation and developments in the Mediterranean basin have frequently been on our agenda. Through a number of debates and adopted texts we have encouraged political and parliamentary dialogue.

The situation in the Middle East is constantly on our agenda. It is quite likely that a new urgent debate will be held during the forthcoming session on 16-20 April.

The Assembly has pronounced itself in favour of the peacefully negotiated, two-state solution. We are doing our utmost to facilitate contacts between members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Knesset at parliamentary level. We are also seeking ways to associate more closely members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly.

The Assembly also has a permanent mandate to debate on the situation in Cyprus. I visited the country in February and called for the Buffer Zone in Cyprus to be turned from a symbol of division into a symbol of co-operation.

Intercultural and inter-religious dialogue is the best way to promote tolerance and cooperation. The Parliamentary Assembly is a natural forum for such dialogue and I have personally made it a key priority of my presidency.

In the 2003 the Assembly adopted a resolution on cultural cooperation between Europe and the south Mediterranean countries, which encompasses the most important ideas for the Assembly. Your Foundation under the leadership of yours highly talented and active chairman Prof. Capasso, is already making a practical contribution.

We recommended a series of actions in the fields of education, heritage and the arts, science, youth, sport and media. We also stressed the special responsibility we have to enhance cultural co-operation at inter-parliamentarian level.

I would only dwell on education, since one of the most important tasks we face is to review what young generations learn about each other. There care still huge reciprocal stereotypes, prejudices and untruths in the different education system. The Council of Europe is doing very useful work in revising school textbooks, particularly history book; we need to extend to the Mediterranean area.

I am also a strong believer in student and teacher exchanges; but the existing mechanism are still unsatisfactory. We need to develop and enlarge the Erasmus concept and facilitate visa arrangements.

The principles, goals and methods of the Bologna process should be a guiding principle for grater cooperation between universities. We have also recommended the creation of a geographically decentralised Euro-Arab university which would have faculties in the South and North, but would be unified by means of a virtual campus providing all the advantages of networked universities.
As chairman of the Board of MSM we are above in so many Arab countries and have strategic alliances in Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey.
I can witness the importance of multicultural educational institutions. I have met many religious leaders during all my official visits including Pope Benedict XVI, today Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, as well as national religious leaders during all my official visit.

At my initiative, the assembly has exchanged views with Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu of the organization of the Islamic Conference. More recently Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey addressed us on the Alliance of Civilization initiative that he and Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain are promoting through the United Nation and which the Assembly fully supports.
I visited Pope Benedict XVI to address our Assembly as well as Patriarch Alexis from Moskov.
At the June 2007 part-session we will be debating reports on “the need for new steps in the field of intercultural and inter-confessional dialogue” and on “blasphemy religious insult and hate speech against persons on grounds of their religion”.

In our work on migration, we start from the principle that it should be viewed as a natural phenomenon and not a problem. We can only tackle illegal migration satisfactorily if we comply to the letter with international human rights protection conventions and give more importance and priority to the fight against poverty and exclusion, the appropriate arrangements to extend the trade area to cover agricultural trade.

It is equally important to create a unified Euro-Mediterranean regulatory framework.

In the field of economy, it is time to deliver on the EU initiative to create a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area by 2010, and find the appropriate arrangements to extend the trade area to cover agricultural trade.

In the field of environment, we realise that the Mediterranean coastline needs to be better protected from the multiple and mounting pressures. They result from industrial, urban and other human-induced development of coastal areas, and also from poorly planned mass tourism development.


Ladies and gentleman,

This is only in a nutshell what the Assembly has done over the past years. I accept with great pleasure and appreciation today’s prize as a sign of recognition but also as s sign of the huge responsibility that you, as a civil society, place in our hands, as political decision-makers. We all have a lot of work on our plates and I hope that we can continue to do it together.



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