Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-09-Speech-3-095"
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"en.20021009.7.3-095"2
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"Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, when giving our opinion, according to the recommendations of Mr Obiols, with regard to the proposal for an association agreement with the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, our Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, through the intermediary of its Chairman, Mr Brok, and with the agreement of its bureau, considered it necessary to open the debate that has brought us here today and which will be followed, tomorrow, by the adoption of a resolution that I hope will be voted for by a very large majority of this House.
This step, which, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, has just enabled us to obtain the answers we were waiting for in response to our main questions, must in no way be interpreted as an attempt to interfere in Algeria’s domestic affairs, particularly as a mark of disrespect towards Algerian culture and identity. On the contrary, it falls within the scope of Parliament’s commitment, recalled here by Mr Obiols, to establishing a privileged partnership with the Maghreb countries based on mutual respect and increased awareness of our common destiny. That was the aim of the own-initiative report on the Arab Maghreb Union, for which Mr Cohn-Bendit and I were co-rapporteurs, which was adopted by a very large majority in this House before the summer.
With regard to this debate, I would now like to emphasise three points that have already been partially raised. The first is that timetabling clashes mean we are delivering our opinion on the same day that local elections, which are crucial for the future, are taking place in Algeria as you mentioned, President-in-Office of the Council. We must hope that these elections contribute to achieving peace, and do not, as some fear today, particularly in Kabylia, give rise to further outbreaks of violence which would serve as pretexts for further repression.
The second point is that, among the anticipated consequences of the conclusion of this agreement, we firmly hope that aid from the European Union will provide a solution to one of the main difficulties in this country, namely the problem of youth unemployment and the resulting frustrations. In this regard, President-in-Office of the Council, you spoke of the need to increase investment and you invited Europeans to invest. In fact, we believe that this is one of the very important areas in which the agreement should allow us to demonstrate our commitment. Today, however, we draw the attention of the Algerian authorities to the fact that, for European investors, the formalities that must currently be fulfilled with a view to approval are probably a little too bureaucratic and can sometimes be discouraging. I have already said this to our Algerian counterparts when I met them last week, but I would like to repeat it today.
The third point is that we must hope this agreement will help to develop and strengthen regional cooperation – and you mentioned that as well, President-in-Office of the Council – and that it will therefore contribute to kick-starting the process of constituting the Arab Maghreb Union, a process which today is unfortunately at a standstill in the absence of any prospect of a political solution to the problem of the Western Sahara. Also on this point, I believe it would be useful to ask the Algerian authorities to pay the utmost attention to finding a solution that allows all the parties concerned to save face, by means, naturally, of the necessary compromises."@en1
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