The PRESIDENT (interpretation)
Thank you
very much for your words of support for our actions, and for your
personal undertaking to uphold the values of the Council of Europe.
I recall, in particular, the strong passage in your speech on the
challenge of migration that awaits us. We must work on it together
because human dignity is at stake. We must take that message to
our national parliaments in order to find solutions and concrete
actions. We thank you infinitely for that.
His Royal Highness has agreed to respond to questions from
the leaders of the political groups. The first speaker is Mr Agramunt
on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party.
Mr AGRAMUNT (Spain) (interpretation)
Your Royal Highness,
I congratulate you on your anniversary as Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
You referred to the crisis of refugees in Europe that we have seen
over recent months. That phenomenon has gained the attention of
European society and European leaders. As you are the head of State of
a member State of the European Union, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg,
may I ask how your country is coping with the integration of all
the people who are coming from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan?
His Royal Highness, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (interpretation)
Thank you for your congratulations. Fifteen years is quite
some time!
If I may, I will put your question in the historical context
in Luxembourg, so that you can understand the position of my country
vis-à-vis the refugees that we are witnessing today. In the 19th
century, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg was a very poor country and
there was a great flow of emigration. Almost a third of the population left
the Grand Duchy to go to the United States of America or Brazil.
In all, 60 000 people left. America was the continent that attracted
the greatest number of migrants. The issue of migration has not
arisen recently; we have had the phenomenon for hundreds of years,
possibly more. We must recall that Europe used to be a continent
of enormous emigration. At the time, we considered ourselves fortunate
to find a country of shelter and asylum such as the United States
of America.
With industrialisation, we found minerals and iron in particular
in the southern part of the country. As a result, the migratory
flow – the demographic curve – fluctuated and we experienced the
opposite trend: we had waves of immigration to our country.
First, Italians came to work in our mines. Our delegation
today includes Mr Mars Di Bartolomeo, who is the Speaker of the
Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies, and he is living proof of that wave
of immigration from Italy at the beginning of the previous century.
Italians came to work in our steelworks and mines. A second wave
of immigration was Portuguese. We now have about 100 000 citizens
of Portuguese extraction in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which
represents almost a fifth of our population. In the 1990s a further
wave of immigration came from the Balkans, this time around as a
consequence of war there. Several tens of thousands of refugees
from the former Yugoslavia were welcomed to our country. Today 49%
of the population resident in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg are
foreign. In addition, 160 000 border workers cross the borders to
work in the Grand Duchy every day.
In other words, we have experience of immigration and of integration.
As far as I am concerned, social cohesion is one of the most essential
issues to settle. How do you organise integration? You do it through
schools, language or languages, employment and jobs, and acquisition
of nationality in the host country. For some years now we have had
a law that allows for dual citizenship, or dual nationality, once
someone has been resident in the country for seven years. So as
things stand we have a lot of experience of integration, which is
why we can welcome the new wave of refugees into our country. I
am very proud of my country, of our political authorities and of
our people, because they have welcomed the refugees with open arms.
The new wave of migrants have come from parts of the world with
difficult economic situations and terrible conditions of war. We have
welcomed them with open arms.
How do we organise their reception? Here I pay tribute to
our minister for integration and family affairs – madame, you are
present in the Chamber – because you have worked unstintingly to
find solutions. Many municipalities and communes in our country
have opened multi-purpose centres to allow refugees to find at least
a temporary place of abode and to provide them with assistance and
the welcoming warmth that our country wants to give them.
Finally, in our experience immigrants are often highly motivated
people. They want to do well and they work extremely hard. In fact,
some children have arrived in our country and they work really well
at school – they work hard and acquire new languages quickly. In
addition, it is a real cultural asset for Luxembourg to have these
people with us. Luxembourg would not be the developed economy that
it is today if we did not have this contribution and effort by all
the immigrants who have come to our country. Thanks to the influx,
our population, which now comes from the whole rest of the world,
is one of the youngest populations in Europe. We are very young
and among the most dynamic. I want to make it clear that we should
not be afraid of those who come from outside our borders; they are
an asset of value for all of us.
Mr GROSS (Switzerland) (interpretation)
Good afternoon,
Your Highness. I thank you for the opportunity and I ask you to explain
to us republicans why we have a monarchy in our democratic era?
His Royal Highness, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
Thank you for that question. I point out that you come from
Switzerland, which is one of the oldest republics in the world,
so I understand the legitimacy of your question – or I almost understand
it. You are, however, putting me in a slightly embarrassing position, because
I am both judge and defendant. I will certainly not defend monarchy,
because I am at the centre of the system, but I will make one or
two comments on your question.
Some republican regimes are democratic, but others are not.
Some monarchies are democratic, but others are not. In Europe we
have about 10 monarchies, which is quite a big figure, but they
are all constitutional or parliamentary monarchies. At least in
Europe, we cannot separate the idea of monarch from the idea of democracy;
on the contrary, they tend to go together and can be combined well.
You can ask the Luxemburgers present in the Chamber, but I think
they will say that the system works.
In addition, look at where democracy comes from. Who is the
mother of democracy? England. What is England, the United Kingdom?
It is a monarchy. I do not see that there is any problem there.
Secondly, to come back to Luxembourg, my grandmother was supported
in a plebiscite. In a referendum, there was 90% support for Luxembourg
as a Grand Duchy, so she had a democratic basis for her position.
One more example is in Spain. What did the King do when there was
a military coup? He kept the democratic institutions – so monarchy
can defend institutions in a democracy. That is my answer to your
question.
The PRESIDENT (interpretation)
Thank you,
sir, for your reply. You said that you were both judge and defendant.
If one accepts a mandate in the Assembly, one has always to declare
a conflict of interest, so you have complied with the recommendations
for our members.
I now call Mr Xuclà, who will speak on behalf of the Alliance
of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
Mr XUCLÀ (Spain)
Sir, I wish to
welcome you on behalf of the Liberal group of the Parliamentary
Assembly. Luxembourg’s affairs are now directed by a Liberal prime
minister, so I welcome you to this home of the defence of human
rights and democracy. As you said, the deep, tranquil force of Europe
is creating this pan-European institution that goes beyond the 28
members of the European Union to reach 47 member States.
Your country is an example of plurilingualism. You have your
own language, but the President, Mrs Brasseur, spoke in her opening
address in her own language and you are fluent in French and German.
Luxembourg is an example of how a country can be governed with different
languages. The university of Luxembourg, for many years directed
by a good friend of mine, Professor Tarrach, also constitutes an
example of how that is possible. Will you tell us how we could extend
plurilingualism in our other European States?
His Royal Highness, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (interpretation)
This is a fascinating question, especially when we are building
up the European Union and exchanges between us are becoming increasingly
important. I shall begin by telling you a little story that is rather
symptomatic. A few years ago, perhaps even 25 years ago, President
Mitterrand came on a State visit to Luxembourg. At the gala dinner
I was seated next to a minister in the Mitterrand government – I
shall not mention the person’s name. We spoke about education and language.
I explained to him the rather particular situation of Luxembourg
and how we called upon children at a very young age to listen to
different languages, which allowed them to learn languages far more
easily. The French minister responded, “You know, French people
are totally unable to learn a language other than French; it’s impossible
for them”. I said, “That is not possible. Why should Luxembourgers
be more intelligent than the French?” He did not much appreciate
that reply.
The story shows that, in the mentalities of some of our countries,
people perhaps do not have access to the possibility of imagining
that they can be capable of learning a new language. In Luxembourg
we are obliged, perforce because of our size, to learn at least
the languages of our neighbours, German and French, alongside Luxembourgish,
which is our national language. To this we add a fourth language,
English, the international language. I shall give you a family example.
My spouse here speaks six languages fluently, I speak only four, our
children speak five to six languages, and this is perfectly normal.
In Luxembourg we constantly move from one language to another during
the day: we read and speak in German, then in French and then English.
These are the mental gymnastics that we have learnt.
Luxembourg has always supported the initiatives of the Council
of Europe in the field of languages. I also believe that linguistic
diversity in Europe is very important; you, as a Spaniard and as
a Catalan, know what that represents. It is part of culture. I believe
that our brains are sufficiently supple and intelligent to allow
us to learn at least one or two extra languages, and we will increasingly
do so in future. We are going to see ministries of national education
in Europe looking increasingly into this matter. We can also see
that parents are interested in their children learning foreign languages.
This is important for communication in Europe.
Mr CHOPE (United Kingdom)
Madame
President, on behalf of the European Conservative Group I thank
His Royal Highness for his speech and his very full answers to these
questions. He has demonstrated the benefit of requiring seven days’
advance notice of questions. Our question is this: does His Royal
Highness agree that keeping a strong sense of national identity
within the individual countries that belong to the Council of Europe is
fundamental to ensuring the future security and democracy of our
continent, and how is this to be achieved?
His Royal Highness, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
Thank you very much. Yes, I have to prepare for seven days
to answer these kinds of questions!
(The Grand Duke continued in French.)
In my view, democratic security in Europe is first and foremost
a collective effort and a shared responsibility between the member
States of the Council of Europe. National identity, however, is
a positive notion when it comes to culture, language or tradition.
There is nothing finer than cultural diversity in Europe and we
are fortunate to have it; each country is so different. Take Great
Britain. It is different from Luxembourg or Italy, but what a tremendous
asset it is. We absolutely must seek to preserve this cultural diversity
as there is no doubt that it constitutes the value of our continent,
but we have common values too, and that is where we have to be firm.
These values are the values of the Council of Europe – democracy,
the rule of law and human rights, which constitute the three pillars
of the Council – and these comprise the acquis, which in my view
is undoubted. We have to work together in order that these values
be shared by all the 47 countries of the Council of Europe.
Mr KOX (Netherlands)
Madame President,
it is true that we sent our questions in writing in advance. That
is not our normal procedure but, coming from the Netherlands, I
am aware that being the head of State of a constitutional monarchy
and a parliamentary democracy is not the easiest job on earth, so
I appreciate very much that the Grand Duke is answering our questions.
I hope that in the near future the Queen of Great Britain will come
and address our Assembly under the same conditions.
My question is as follows: since the fall of the Iron Curtain,
the strength of the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly
has always been the membership of nearly all the European countries,
from small countries such as Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the
big ones: Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Since
the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine, however, relations here
with the parliament of Russia have been put on hold, while in the
United Kingdom in recent years there has been growing criticism
of the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights. Meanwhile,
countries such as Azerbaijan refuse to implement the Court’s verdicts.
Also, we have recently seen that in Ukraine part of the European
Convention on Human Rights has been put on hold. How do you, as
the head of a State that was a founding member of the Council of
Europe, envisage the chances of overcoming this growing divide among
the Council of Europe member States? How might we rebuild the Council’s
strength in the near future?
His Royal Highness, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (interpretation)
If I may, I shall answer your question by drawing an analogy.
I cannot really enter into the detail of all the debates and the
Council of Europe’s difficulties vis-à-vis some of the member States.
I am sure that you will understand my predicament.
It seems to me that the Council of Europe should be seen as
a big family. What happens in a family? In a family, sometimes its
members behave in a way that is perhaps not entirely appropriate
– they distance themselves and depart from the general rules that
normally apply within a family, or argue with other members of the
family. Within a family, you have the father and the mother, and
the parents should always make sure that a dialogue is maintained
with the person who might be acting differently under particular
circumstances. Dialogue is essential if you want to preserve family
unity.
Why is it, at the end of the day, that we set up these major
international organisations, whether it is the United Nations, the
European Union or the Council of Europe? The first reason was to
maintain peace. Think of the United Nations, for instance. It is
an enormous structure – absolutely gigantic – and yet it is essential
because it means we have diplomacy behind the scenes. This behind-the-scenes
diplomacy is often far more important than what happens within a
debating chamber such as this one. Dialogue is essential, be it
within a family or elsewhere. I would argue that we should always
do our utmost to find a place where we can come together and exchange
our points of view. In fact, I spoke to Madame Brasseur about this
earlier. She has been extraordinary because she really has tried
to reach out to countries that are having problems, to meet their leaders,
and to come up with options for a compromise.
Be that as it may, the Council of Europe has a moral authority,
and that is key – essential. It is backed up by its legal arm, the
European Court of Human Rights. These two components make your Organisation
a very strong institution. Very often, not necessarily always, little
by little, step by step, you are able to bring back into the fold
the countries that have departed somewhat from the common ground.
How long did it take us to become democrats? These countries have
to be afforded a little bit of time so as to make sure that they
can really anchor this culture of democracy properly. It is very
important for them, too, to be here in the Council of Europe in
order to learn everything that democracy has given us.
THE PRESIDENT (interpretation)
Sir, thank
you for having responded to the questions of Assembly members. Yes, Mr Chope,
they were framed ahead of time, but we have the good fortune to
have a representative of a monarchy who was kind enough to respond
to them. I would like to reiterate Mr Kox’s invitation of the Queen of
England to come here to respond to our questions. Sir, I thank you
for your speech and for the manner in which you responded to the
questions. To conclude, I would like to say something in Luxembourgish,
which you all understand – villmols merci.
