Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-16-Speech-4-093"
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"en.19991216.2.4-093"2
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"Mr President, in our opinion the most striking feature of the Helsinki European Council was the absence of any long-term political vision among the Heads of State and Government. They decided to enlarge the Union to a previously unimagined extent, possibly adding thirteen new members, without giving any consideration to the conceptual tools which would make it possible to envisage the institutional structures capable of coping with this enlargement.
The contradiction has now reached its limit with the inclusion of Turkey on the list of official candidates. The Turkish Prime Minister declared the day after the Summit that membership of the European Union was, and I quote, a “birthright” for Turkey. This gives us an idea of the restraint which he is ready to show in pushing open the door to the European Union. Yet it is clear to all freethinking observers that the arrival of Turkey will profoundly alter the nature of the Union.
Can you, for example, imagine the free movement of persons between Turkey and the countries of western Europe, virtually without any controls as is now happening within the EU? The Heads of State and Government who are supposed to be responsible must be very far removed from reality to imagine for one instant that this could happen.
Yet they continue to advocate an almost unique solution with the extension of qualified majority voting, as reiterated the day before yesterday by the French President, Jacques Chirac, before this House. The federalists are simply reeling off the same old recipes by rote, without thinking about what they are saying.
We have the impression of an institutional system that is going downhill and which has no concept of its future, unless the Council has one without daring to tell us. It seems to be a prisoner of the consequences of an enlargement decision which it cannot control.
The Turkish Prime Minister has boasted of having been supported by Washington in his attempt to accede to the European Union, and it is true that this intervention was effective. He has even added that less time will be needed than was thought for Turkey to become a full member of the Union. At this rate, it will also take less time than we thought for the Union to self-destruct."@en1
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