mr president as a former uk immigration minister i and my group are wholeheartedly supportive of providing equal rights and equal opportunities for all people
i agree with my group's chairman michał kamiński who this morning said that this continent must never revive the ghosts of past nationalism and that the eu is a zone of freedom and tolerance is its greatest achievement
we should be proud of that but we must never fool ourselves into believing that we do not still have massive problems
undoubtedly this issue requires debate consideration and action on how we treat minority groups how we can better integrate the roma people and proportionality between the rights and the powers of national governments and the eu
however i also believe that our union is built on the rule of law
whilst it is a parliamentarian's right to raise justified concerns in this debate i would also ask us to wait until the commission as the guardian of the treaties actually makes a formal ruling on this issue
then we can make informed judgments based on all of the facts and decide how to focus on better integration of the roma people within europe rather than pre-emptively condemning a fellow member state
