Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-31-Speech-3-040"
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"en.20010131.3.3-040"2
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".
Mrs Schroedter, we do need time. In the report I even mentioned the fact that for the countries which are currently in the greatest difficulty within the European Union, the regions lagging furthest behind in development, it would take another generation to reduce this gap. I pointed out that it would take roughly, and I can only make a rough prediction, two generations for the countries scheduled to join us in approximately 2004-2005. I concur with your view that we shall be able to make a greater success of enlargement and the actual accession of these countries if we make the best possible preparations at this stage. That is why, alongside my fellow Commissioners, Mr Verheugen and Mr Fischler, who are responsible, respectively, for the PHARE programme and the SAPARD programme, whilst I myself am responsible for the ISPA programme for the environment and transport, I am committed to ensuring that this money is used properly, and that part of the technical assistance associated with these funds is used to set up territorial frameworks. This is the real weakness of the candidate countries whose regional divisions have not existed for very long. The Voivodships in Poland have only been in existence for two years. We must therefore support the territorial frameworks by means of these Structural Funds. Indeed, I never miss an opportunity to urge local communities within the current Union to set up twinning partnerships and decentralised cooperation agreements with candidate country regions in order to establish more ongoing cooperation on the human level within each territorial community. We attach great importance, therefore, to using these pre-accession funds as usefully as possible. I cannot, however, make any commitments, Mrs Schroedter, as to what we shall do with the money placed in reserve after 2002 – I mentioned approximately EUR 40 billion – if these countries do not join in 2002. For the time being the funds have been set aside to cater for those accessions that do actually take place. In response to your question, however, I should like to point out that we have pre-accession instruments and that these are what we should be using, when the time comes, to carry accession through successfully."@en1
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