Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-03-Speech-2-156"
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"en.20001003.4.2-156"2
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"Mr President, those of us in the Liberal Group have recently been receiving visits from future MEPs from the candidate countries and, let me tell you, they are impatient. They see support for this massive peace project dwindling, both in the current Member States and in their own countries. We should remember that it is not only for their sake that we should enlarge the Union. It is, to a large degree, also for our own sake. We are so preoccupied with what we should demand of them and with what we can teach them. We should perhaps concern ourselves a little more with what they can rightly demand of
and with what they can teach us. They are proud of their new-won freedom and democracy and their impressive economic growth, and remember that it was not we who obtained freedom for them. They did that for themselves 11 years ago when they amazed all the diplomats and observers by seizing the opportunity to break the Communist yoke and, in that way, also paved the way for German reunification. We believe we must teach them about democracy, but do you not think that countries which have experienced dictatorship know better than we do what is important in democracy? What we need, of course, is for the new Member States from the East to help us keep to what is the purpose of it all, namely a Union of free and sovereign Member States in which the freedom of the people and the nations is given pride of place. They can perhaps teach us to use the proximity principle somewhat better. If there are rules which are unsuited to the new countries, then it is perhaps the rules which should be adapted and not the new countries which should adjust. If there is a need for long transitional arrangements on certain points, then let us have long transitional arrangements. If there is a need to postpone the free right to acquire land and property for family use, then let us do that. The most important thing is to get the new countries around the table with us, so that they can be involved in shaping Europe’s future. That is important not only for them but also for ourselves."@en1
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