Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-03-14-Speech-3-157"
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"en.20010314.5.3-157"2
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"Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not agree at all with the comments made by Mrs Lindh, who talks about the ‘experience of the Balkans’. I think what is happening now in Macedonia is proof that we have seen, heard and learned nothing, or rather, that you have seen, heard and learned nothing.
What is happening now in Macedonia is happening in Macedonia and there is no point in creating alibis for ourselves and in saying, as many do, that the crisis stems from Kosovo, from the transfer of persons, of ex-members of the KLA to Macedonia. The crisis in Macedonia is a crisis which arose and which spread because of our lack of a serious policy on Macedonia over the last ten years.
My socialist colleagues will remember the insistence with which Mrs Pack and myself came back time and time again to the importance of a project which seemed marginal, which my socialist and communist colleagues regarded with a certain condescension. I am speaking of the Tetovo University project, which was fundamentally important in terms of reacting to the frustration of the Albanians in Macedonia. We were looked upon condescendingly as we were looked upon condescendingly fifteen years ago when, in this Parliament, we called for the accession of the then Yugoslavia to the European Community as the only way of avoiding the explosion which did indeed take place several years later.
The question that arises is that of the frustrations of the Albanian population, which are extremely long standing and which did not meet with an initial response until the entry into office of the government of Mr Georgievski. Throughout the first eight years of Macedonian independence, these frustrations were played on by the Social Democratic government of Mr Crvenkovski, who literally bought a few Albanians, a few quislings, by offering them marginal posts in his government and a few ambassadorial posts here and there.
On the other hand, the government of Mr Georgievski certainly saved Macedonia from an enormous disaster. Mr Georgievski did this by integrating in his government the party of Mr Xhaferi, whom socialist colleagues regarded as an extremist, though they had to sing another tune when they saw the role played by Mr Xhaferi at the time of the 1999 crisis, when hundreds of thousands of Kosovars were chased out of Kosovo by the regime of the war criminal, Mr Milosevic. The then Macedonia was about to explode. That it did not explode was thanks to this ‘extremist’, Mr Xhaferi. That it still has not exploded is thanks, once again, first and foremost, to Mr Xhaferi and certainly not to our action, to the action of the European Union.
Commissioner Patten has now taken charge of this case. The question of the university should be resolved. It is an urgent matter because it concerns 6 000 students who should be able to be transferred to this new official university. If they are not, they will not have the possibility of gaining equivalent diplomas, and if it is not resolved by the end of the year, we will have 6 000 desperate young people who will subsequently fuel the crisis to which we have contributed so much during the course of the last few years.
This is the situation in Macedonia. The situation is getting even worse, however, because, in addition to the frustration of the Albanian population, we also have the enormous worry of the Macedonian counterpart. So the solutions of the past, which may have been progressive, which may have led to the creation of this university, which may have been a gradual process to dismantle the national Slav-Macedonian state to replace it with a federal state, now need to be speeded up. We must propose new solutions to our Macedonian interlocutors which go much further and which can tackle both the frustration of the Albanians and the deep concerns of the Slav-Macedonian population.
As regards conflict prevention in this context, for ten years we have been witnessing absolutely intolerable behaviour on the part of our Greek colleagues. Instead of looking ahead and trying to convince the Greek population of the need to give an identity to the Macedonian population, both Albanian and Slav-Macedonian, through the name ‘Macedonia’, they have blocked, with insolence to say the least, any process which would enable Macedonians to finally have a republic which is not called FYROM, Madam President-in-Office, but ‘Macedonia’. It is perhaps high time that, within the Council, an attempt is made to convince the Greek representative so that, finally, this problem can be resolved and so that, finally, the Macedonians can have full entitlement to this name.
This is the situation we find ourselves in. I think it is urgent that we act, that we move more quickly, and that we restore the confidence of the Macedonian population and the Albanian-speaking population of Macedonia."@en1
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