madam president the somewhat misleading title of today's debate includes the word subsidiarity
subsidiarity as i understand it means taking decisions at the level closest to the citizen and that level is the citizen the individual citizen
what you are saying in your resolutions is that the rights of a national state are above the rights of individual citizens
it is our job in this house to protect the rights of citizens not the rights of states
secondly if we consider as you claim that this is not a matter for the european union i would like to understand why these matters are included in the copenhagen criteria and why we demand from candidate countries that they respect the separation of church and state when we cannot demand that of our own member states
thirdly colleagues if you say that the european parliament is not competent to talk about these matters i wonder why we are competent to discuss matters like the shape of cucumbers but not the fundamental rights of our citizens
as to the european convention on human rights and the court ruling we are now two weeks after the entry into force of the lisbon treaty which requires that the eu accede to the convention on human rights
would it not be incomprehensible if we at the same time refused to accept the authority of the court of strasbourg
we cannot explain that to our citizens
secondly i think and this has been said by mr lópez before politicians have no business interfering in court rulings
let the judges do their jobs
we may have an opinion we may like the ruling or we may not like it but we should not interfere in their work
my group the alde group the european liberals is the champion of a europe that is for all citizens
alde believes in a europe of diversity where everybody has the right to their own conscience their own religion and even the freedom from religion
i will now conclude
the states not the courts the states must ensure an environment where all citizens can live freely according to their own conscience
they should be protected by the state and i think the situation is very serious if they feel the need to go to court in order to defend themselves from the states
colleagues reject the epp and ecr resolutions
