Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-06-Speech-3-208"
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"en.20000906.9.3-208"2
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"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful that we are having this debate, because it gives me the opportunity to offer a word of explanation – and therefore have the final word, as I see it – on the interview that unleashed this furore.
The Commission has absolutely no intention – and it was most certainly the very last thing I intended – of introducing any new political conditions into the negotiating process or the decision-making process. The strategy has been laid down by the European Council. The Commission pursues this strategy with vigour.
And as President Prodi has already said, it makes perfect sense for the accession treaties to be ratified in the individual Member States in accordance with their respective legal systems. Three conclusions can be drawn from this, to my mind. Firstly, we must wage a broadly-based communication campaign in the Member States and the candidate countries. The Commission has already made the necessary preparations to this end. Secondly, we ought not to dismiss any fears or concerns people may have, rather we should talk openly to them and help them….
... to seize the new opportunities and rise to the new challenges. I am thinking, in particular, of the border regions. The Commission is working on a programme here too.
And thirdly, when it comes to issues beset with fears and emotions – and they are there in the enlargement process; take, for example, the issue of immigration – we must proceed with the greatest caution and keep a sense of perspective as far as we possibly can. But there are ways and means of solving these problems. And these must, and will be, decided on when the time is right, and in the appropriate manner.
I made the point, in this interview – in a personal capacity and in a purely German context – that referenda can help to involve the public more closely in major European projects that change the constitutional nature of the State. I cited the Treaty of Maastricht as an example of this, and not enlargement. Finally, I also said that the German constitution makes no provision for this. No one regrets more than I do the fact that this statement was taken to mean that I was calling for a referendum on enlargement. I hereby declare that I did not raise such a demand, either for Germany or for any other country for that matter.
If you read the text with complete impartiality and do not rely on second-hand reports, you will come to no other conclusion.
But what was the real message? The message was this: ‘we want enlargement and we want it to be implemented as quickly as possible and as comprehensively as is necessary.’ A huge number of Members of this House know that for a year now, I have been trying, with a passion, to get a direct message across to the citizens of the candidate countries and the Member States, to the effect that we really do want these new Members.
What I am trying to do, is to breathe life into a process that could easily slip into pure practicalities. We want to secure peace and stability throughout Europe. We want to give young democracies the chance to participate, on equal terms, in Europe’s political and economic development. We want to boost Europe’s role in international competition. We have no alternative. Since the Prodi Commission took office, the outcome of the enlargement negotiations has been positive. The progress reports that the Commission is due to submit in the autumn will reveal that the candidate countries have made an enormous amount of progress and are approaching the stage when they will be ready for accession.
The Commission is intending to propose new elements for the negotiating strategy in the autumn, which should make it possible to proceed even more rapidly with negotiations and to tackle the key issues that arise at the negotiating table.
I might point out that it will only be possible to make this kind of headway in close cooperation with the Member States and the European Parliament. I would expressly like to thank the European Parliament for its outstanding cooperation and for the unconditional support it has given me, so far at any rate. I also warmly commend the European Parliament and its Members for their positive role in the efforts being made to raise awareness of this historic project amongst the people of Europe. I have always advocated that we should obtain the broadest possible support amongst the public, and highlight, in a wide-ranging public debate, the major benefits that the accession of new Member States would bring.
We must convince people that enlargement will be politically and economically advantageous to both sides from the very outset. We need to have a wide-ranging , democratic debate on this historic project. These were the basic ideas I wanted to bring out in the interview."@en1
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