Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-045"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20020313.2.3-045"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, I would like to thank all the honourable Members who took the floor. I listened carefully to what they had to say. Unfortunately, time does not allow me to reply to each of them individually, as I would have liked. I believe this has been a very useful exchange of views and ideas for all concerned. It demonstrates the cooperation that exists between the various European institutions, notable the Council, Parliament and the Commission. I would however like to make some observations and I hope they will be relevant.
This will be the best way of ensuring that conflicts do not arise. It should prevent a repeat of the war situation these countries experienced in the recent past. It is for this reason that the European Union is setting up Association and Stability Agreements with several of these countries within the framework of the Stability Pact. The time-scales vary from country to country, but it is our declared aim to ensure that all of them will in due course be in a position to apply for membership of the European Union.
This therefore is the venture we are currently engaged in. You will appreciate the importance of getting things right at this stage. We must be serious, rigorous, disciplined and realistic. I listened carefully to the honourable Members who spoke of reconsidering the financial perspective and of how enlargement would not be achieved for free. It certainly will not. On the contrary, it will be provided for within the framework of the financial perspective we agreed. That is something quite different.
Other speakers referred to the need to begin considering the reform of the common policies. They are quite right, of course. I would like to make the following quite clear, however. At this juncture, anyone who maintains that the debates on the financial perspective and on the reform of common policies should be interwoven with the accession negotiations has to realise that doing so would make it impossible to keep to the timetable for enlargement. Anyone in favour of enlargement and meeting the deadlines set must be aware that either we continue in the present vein or we shall fail. I believe there is full agreement between the Council and the Commission. I trust the same is true of Parliament. A broad consensus of this nature is essential if we are to meet the citizens’ expectations.
I should like to make one last observation which I think is also relevant. The European Union has demonstrated a clear political will concerning enlargement. That political will does not, however, imply that a political decision has been taken to close negotiations with ten candidates before the end of the year.
Political will is essential but it is not sufficient. The pace of negotiations must be maintained, and the candidate countries need to demonstrate their administrative and judicial capability. In essence, they must demonstrate their political capability regarding the transposition of the
into their legislation. Further, they must satisfy us that they are capable of complying with it. Things will go badly both for them and for the present Members if that is not the case. We are all committed to ensuring success.
I trust that the same kind of clear political will shown by the European Union will also be shown by the candidate countries, and that they will therefore take the action required. Then, when the time is right, it will indeed be possible for us to take the political decision to close negotiations with ten countries in the first instance and with more in the future.
As I see it, there is clear and overwhelming support for this great historical enterprise of enlargement. We have all but achieved a common front on this issue. In addition, there is universal awareness of the need to abide by the timetable we set ourselves to ensure that many of today’s candidate countries can participate in the next elections to the European Parliament in 2004 and be represented in this House.
The historical dimension of enlargement was mentioned, and rightly so. Enlargement is a political venture but also one with a historical dimension. It aims to reunite Europe for good, following the divisions that arose during the cold war and the balance of terror, when Europe was split into rival blocs. Nonetheless, it is true that this enlargement will probably not allow us to claim that we are topping off the building of Europe in a geographical sense.
At present we are all thinking in terms of a maximum of 10 countries, and of concluding negotiations by the end of 2002. I shall come back to the question of the number of countries in a moment. We are working hard, but many difficulties and obstacles remain to be overcome. Several honourable Members referred earlier to the situation of Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, the Balkans and Ukraine.
I should like to point out that when strong criticism of the present process of building Europe is voiced, there is a tendency to overlook the fact that the building of Europe and the whole political enterprise of creating the Union are an obvious success story. The Union began with six Member States. There are now 15. Very soon we could be 25, then 27, 28 and perhaps many more in the future.
Nobody wants to be associated with failure or to join a poorly-run club. On the other hand, people generally queue up to join a well-run venture with proven success.
Take the Balkans as an example. I shall refer to both the Eastern and the Western Balkans including Bulgaria and Romania. I said earlier, and Commissioner Verheugen endorsed my comments, that it is essential to send out very clear, strong and positive messages to Bulgaria and Romania. The aim is to open all the chapters with these countries in the coming few months, and to speed up negotiations for their future accession as much as possible. The European dimension has special significance for these countries, as indeed it did for Spain in the past.
Where freedom, the consolidation of democracy, social justice, modernisation and economic progress were concerned, Europe always was a lodestar for Spain. The same is true for these countries. They have exactly the same right to integrate into the European Union as we had at the time. In due course the same will also be true of the Western Balkans.
What are we offering these countries? We are spreading a prospect out before them and offering them the opportunity of integration. We are enabling them to pursue the consolidation of democracy and internal reforms, because there is no feasible alternative to integration into Europe."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples