Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-03-Speech-2-118"
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"en.20001003.4.2-118"2
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"We shall not be voting in favour of the Brok report, but certainly not because we are opposed to the idea of enlargement, which is, quite obviously, a historical inevitability, just as it is a geographical inevitability. Even the very name ‘Europe’, by definition, includes all the nations from the Atlantic to the Urals, although this has apparently been forgotten by a tiny part of the continent, the most prosperous and, in many ways, the most arrogant part, which appropriated the name half a century ago.
Our opposition to the Brok report is not an indication of ostracism of our partners in Eastern and Central Europe, or southern Europe, quite the contrary, it means that this report sets conditions which are absolutely intolerable, with regard to countries which have been European for centuries and of which we should not be making any other demand whatsoever except, perhaps, for the one condition that political pluralism be respected.
We can understand there being political conditions, given a political undertaking such as European cooperation. We cannot, however, accept economic and social conditions especially as they are so stringent that they are continually pushing back the deadlines and consigning the States to upheavals that are ruinous for their economic and social structure, to the sole advantage, perhaps, of the German patron, who alone may be profiting from the current lack of organisation in Central Europe.
To take just one example, the example of Poland, which moreover is particularly dear to us, it is, unfortunately, only too obvious that opening up frontiers too suddenly is likely to cause its agricultural structures to be ruined very quickly. One quarter of the jobs in Poland are provided by this sector. Last year the rural population increased by 5% in relation to the previous year, and if we wish to bring it in line with our model, then we are simply going to well and truly kill off what is still one of the best assets this country has, not to mention the social problems we shall be inflicting on a very large part of the population.
On all these subjects, the Brok report confines itself to discussing adaptation and reform. In the final analysis, however, there are two possibilities, either we dictate a forced march rate of change and we disrupt most of the candidate countries, or we wait until the conditions set are fulfilled thanks to natural development, and that means postponing accession until the Greek calends.
In actual fact, the thing we are rushing into is the very model of the construction of Europe, by which I mean to say the simultaneous integration of all sectors of activity whatever the traditions or special characteristics of the individual sectors, which once again has turned into a trap. Because we wished to do away with borders in just a few years, because we chose to disregard the differences between nations and their respective systems, we have arrived, once more, at a sort of all or nothing, a choice between two equally dreadful evils.
Obviously, we should have chosen a political Europe, designed as a body for ongoing dialogue accompanied by a few
cooperative agreements, as the programmes Eureka attempted previously. This would have been the option of a confederal Europe, which would have respected the frontiers of all parties, respected each nation’s rate and manner of development, and finally would have respected Europe as a whole. As far as the issue we are discussing today is concerned, this would have enabled us to welcome new countries as and when they applied to be candidates, as in NATO, moreover, for let us not delude ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, as far as we are concerned, the political battle is lost to the United States, who, by using the flexible method of political and military alliance, long ago ensured the enlargement of Europe, but to their advantage.
It will be a long time before the matter of enlargement is settled, since it depends on our being able to backtrack on the ideological, and indeed rather puerile, concept of uniform integration, not to say the melding of all our nations into a compact whole that runs contrary to geographical and historical realities.
That just shows you how pessimistic we are, for our part, so great is the blindness of the European institutions careering headlong along the most pernicious routes, and so great the blindness of the European Parliament which is incapable of issuing an opinion on the burning issues of the day, such as, for example, the unrest in Palestine, where a supposedly democratic State is murdering children in the streets on a daily basis. Instead, this Parliament is losing itself in wearying fancies at the expense of perpetual division."@en1
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