Brussels, 09/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - At the European Parliament, the President of the EPP-ED Group, Mr. Poettering said that the American strikes on Afghanistan "are no clash between civilisations, but the defence of civilisation's common values against a criminal regime" which aggresses the values of Islam as much as those of Western civilisation (also see yesterday's EUROPE, p. 7). The President of the GUE/NGL Group, Mr. Wurtz, while stressing that the fight against terrorism "must succeed at all costs", wondered whether the American military operation "takes this fight forward", and fears that "the contrary may be true". Recalling that M. Solana had said that "the fight against terrorism is not a fight of a military nature", Mr. Wurtz asked "Europe not to go down that path". For the co-Presidents of the Green Group, Ms. Hautala and Paul Lannoye, the military intervention "must be strictly limited to destroying the terrorist network". Noting that Bin Laden had confirmed his "real intentions by declaring war on Jews and Christians", the MEPs pleaded in favour of a "global political strategy" under the auspices of the UN, which should convene a new regional conference on the Middle East.
The Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Elmar Brok told the press that the Greek Socialist Giorgios Katiforis had proposed the adoption of a Charter against terrorism - which, according to Brok, could develop the contents of the UN San Francisco Charter (we shall return to this).