Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-07-03-Speech-2-005"
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"en.20010703.1.2-005"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members of this important Assembly, allow me to begin first of all by thanking you for your constructive cooperation during the Swedish presidency. It is important for the European Union’s different institutions to support, inspire, criticise and cooperate with one another but never forget that we have a common mission to develop our Union.
Relations with the United States are not just about Kyoto. They are also, of course, about the situations in the Balkans and the Middle East and other international issues on which we hold similar positions and have every reason to cooperate. During the Swedish presidency, the European Union’s active presence in the Middle East has also, of course, been emphasised. That is important. The Middle East is the European Union’s neighbour. If the crisis in the Middle East escalates further – and we can, of course, all see that there is a very great risk of this happening – it will also become our own crisis, which is something that must be prevented using every political means available. Where the Middle East is concerned, too, this has been an extraordinarily active period from the points of view of the presidency, the Commission and also Secretary-General/High Representative Javier Solana.
In this way, a list can be made of foreign policy activities. Think too of North and South Korea, where the peace process must continue and be brought to a conclusion. The European Union, too, might be able to play a role there in the right circumstances. A picture is emerging of a European Union which is becoming more and more active in the field of foreign policy because we stand for common values, common views and a common approach. When we act together, we exercise influence. That is the signal.
Enlargement, foreign policy and environmental issues – these issues were incredibly important to the Swedish presidency. The Commission and Commissioner Wallström provided us with a very good basis in the form of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme and, subsequently, the Commission’s report on sustainable development. In Göteborg, we were able to establish principles for dealing with environmental issues in the future. We were able to establish that these processes must now also be integrated into the Lisbon process. In that way, we were able to take a decisive step towards sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic, social and ecological. That was an extraordinarily sound foundation provided by the Commission and each successive presidency and Commission must now make that foundation more secure and give it ever more practical expression. Perhaps matters are not progressing quickly enough. It is my feeling that they never do when it comes to the issue of the environment. On the other hand, we have the processes. We have a direction in which to move, and the first necessary political decisions have been taken. I believe that the decision taken in Göteborg was an extraordinarily important one.
Obviously, we also discussed the economic issues in Göteborg. We dealt with a number of the decisions which had, as it were, been left over from the Stockholm Summit – European Single Sky, the issues surrounding patents, general economic development, the demographic issue and lasting pension systems. Also on the agenda were matters which do not, of course, give rise to such a very great deal of opposition within the European Union today but, rather, provide something of an impetus for working together on issues which we know will, in actual fact, be of crucial importance to people’s lives in our part of the world during the next 20-30 years.
We have also had occasion, during our presidency, to pilot through to the decision-making stage a proposal concerning transparency in the European Union and the accessibility of documents. Let me say that it would not have been possible to arrive at that decision but for the very active support of Parliament. This is an excellent example of how Parliament, together with the Council and also the Commission, can implement a change. I am obviously not completely satisfied. We could have gone further but, as in all political contexts, not everything is achieved. We obtained a compromise along the right lines. It made the European Union more open, but it was not the finished product. I should like to see the debate continue, but our citizens are nonetheless now better placed to keep track of the things we are doing in the Union and, on
grounds, to examine these critically and present alternatives – on
grounds, I say, precisely because the information is available.
During the Swedish presidency, we have also begun the debate on the future. It will dominate the Belgian presidency and will, when 2004 comes around, result in a major decision being taken. The guidelines from Nice have been assigned, that is to say what will mainly be found within the framework of the debate. Now, both you and I know that, in a debate on the future of the European Union, we shall not be satisfied with concentrating on the four issues we cited in Nice. Instead, there will be a broader debate. Let it be just such a broad debate. Let it be a debate on what the European Union is, in actual fact, aiming for and on what it wants to do, and let there then be a discussion on how this is to be achieved. We must not always begin with a discussion on building and developing the institutions and then eventually conclude with the political discussion on what it is we want. Turn the debate on its head: invite the people of Europe to take part, broaden the debate and do not set any limits to it. Progressively structure the debate as a proper Intergovernmental Conference aimed at making the European Union more rational and more powerful. Our ambition was to launch a broad debate, and that is something we have done.
As I said at the beginning, we in the Swedish presidency have taken great pains to cooperate with Parliament. I was doing some totting up yesterday and worked out that Swedish ministers have taken part in debates and discussions in this Assembly or in other constellations associated with Parliament on 86 occasions. It has been incredibly worthwhile for us, and it is something I want to thank you for.
I also want to say that we now believe we have obtained a breakthrough with the Members’ Charter and can press for a solution to that issue. That is the way it looks following an initial decision. I am pleased that, when we talk about Parliament and relations between the presidency and Parliament, we can also say that we have received a great many good ideas and proposals from yourselves.
Finally, I want to thank all the officials in the Commission, in Parliament and in the Council who have supported us during the presidency. Naturally, I am also deeply grateful towards my own colleagues in the Swedish Cabinet Office and Ministries who have enabled us to say, as we draw the Swedish presidency to a close, that we have made some progress. In the course of our six months, we took a few steps in the direction we wanted to go. I now hope that the Belgian presidency will do some further work on these major issues. I intend to do what I can to help ensure that my colleague, Mr Verhofstadt, is given all the constructive support he needs, in exactly the same way as I, during the Swedish presidency, have had extraordinarily fine support from Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin, the French president and prime minister. This was an absolute precondition for the success of our presidency and I am deeply grateful for it.
Finally, I want to say that, as our various parliaments around Europe enter their summer recess, there is an issue which I think we have to take away with us, namely the issue which, in all likelihood, is to be a feature of the debate about the future: that of how we are to make the European Union more open and more results-oriented and of how it is to be brought closer to our citizens. How is this to happen? What is that development to look like? What is possible in an enlarged Union? The Union will grow. That is something we now know following this presidency. It will grow and become a large Union with perhaps a further five, ten or perhaps still more Member States both in this Parliament and in the European Council.
The Swedish presidency’s objective was to proceed from important decisions to the implementation of those decisions. Our ambition was not to add new decisions but, rather, to implement decisions already taken. We wanted to concentrate on three areas, which I had the opportunity to talk about when I was in Parliament at the beginning of the presidency. These were enlargement of the Union and issues relating to employment and the environment. In addition, we wanted to develop the Union’s common foreign and security policy.
Thank you for your constructive cooperation. I look forward to a continued relationship with the European Parliament.
I make no claim to provide a comprehensive review of the Swedish presidency in my report. Instead, I would offer some reflections upon the last six months. We have worked incredibly hard with the Commission in order to press on with the enlargement negotiations. The objective of this work was to show that the timetable drawn up by the Commission for the enlargement negotiations was realistic. We can now see that, during the Swedish presidency, we did everything we intended to do, and a little more besides. The very ambitious timetable drawn up by the Commission proved to be realistic. This was the basis for the European Council in Göteborg when we said that, in our judgment, we should have completed negotiations with the best prepared countries before the end of 2002 and that we also anticipated the first of today’s candidate countries’ participating, as Members of the European Union, in the elections to the European Parliament in 2004. We were given a clear signal concerning the enlargement we wanted to see. We were given this because the negotiating work had been successful. This does not, of course, mean that the enlargement process has been carried out, but an important step has been taken. What is required is continued concentration and continued support for the Commission’s work and for the forthcoming presidencies, but also an appreciation of the fact that many of the difficulties represented by the enlargement process are, in fact, to be found within the European Union as it stands and not in relations with the candidate countries. The most demanding task for us within the European Union is to work out common positions for the fifteen Member States. There is a further demanding task. Our friends and colleagues in the candidate countries have the task of implementing reforms in their countries of such a kind as will prepare them for membership of the European Union. We must not forget, however, that we ourselves have to conduct an internal debate within the Union which, from a political perspective, is probably as difficult as the reforms which our friends have to implement in the candidate countries.
We said in Göteborg that enlargement would be a fact by 2004. To cite the French President’s description of the project, it is an irrevocable process. At the same time, we also said that we must be realistic and appreciate that there are certain countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, which need extra support in their preparations. We are not talking here about extra financial support, but about support in the work of negotiation.
When Sweden took over the presidency, it was also our ambition to develop the foreign and security policy. We did not, however, emphasise this so much in our presidency programme, even though we mentioned it. Instead, we adopted the strategy of taking action. I am convinced that what we have managed to achieve in terms of foreign policy will be something that develops during forthcoming presidencies, for such development is to the European Union’s advantage when it comes to external relations.
I am thinking, above all, of three important factors. Increasingly, practical foreign policy is linked, firstly, to values, democracy and human rights; secondly, to economic relations, especially trade; and, thirdly, to a just and progressive aid policy, to which, from our point of view, it will continue to be linked. This last consideration is something to which we devote too little time and attention. It is an undervalued factor in external relations. These three factors indicate a development parallel to that of the European Union. If we are then able to act in concert on the basis of our values, we can also exercise influence.
During the Swedish presidency, we have developed our relations with Russia. Not for a moment have we concealed our disapproval of the situation in, for example, Chechnya. Never have we concealed our views on the situation in Russia where the freedom of the media is concerned, but we have, at the same time, developed relations in order to create economic cooperation and a dialogue characterised by trust.
We have also said that Russia is not enough. Russia is just one important factor. In that part of Europe, it is also a question of developing relations with Ukraine, which is a large, strategically important country with a European identity and which must have the option of belonging to Europe. According to the Göteborg conclusions, Ukraine is a country which, together with Moldova, will, in future, be invited to participate in the European conference. In that way, the European Union is also developing a relationship specifically in terms of foreign policy.
During our presidency, we also met the American president for the first time in the group of Fifteen. The fifteen Member States took part in a dialogue directly with the American president, just as we had met the Russian president. In that context, there was naturally a great deal of talk about the Kyoto issue, about which we most certainly do not, of course, have the same views – a fact which there was no point at all in concealing. On the contrary, there is reason for conducting a very open and tough debate, because we believe that the United States is not complying with those obligations it had earlier sent signals it was prepared to stand by. I am pleased that the European Union remained completely united in its dialogue with the United States about Kyoto. That was incredibly important."@en1
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