Wednesday, 26 February 2014 - Strasbourg

Debate

Pino Arlacchi (S&D ). - Mr President, I am listening here to a long list of horror stories about Iraq. A few of my colleagues have mentioned what was a major origin of the horror, namely the war – one of the most stupid, expensive and useless wars of the last decades, waged in the name of exporting democracy and defending us from threats that did not exist.

So, since this is a time when many of us would like Europe to play an increasing role in the world, with more intervention, accomplishing more and better things on all fronts, I would simply like to remind my colleagues that once the cameras have gone, once the spotlight has shifted, the problem may be that democracy is not there in the way that you expected. You have to contribute to rebuilding a country which is very hard to rebuild, and you have to address all the problems that are now apparent.

[source:www.europarl.europa.eu]