Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-23-Speech-3-055"
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"en.20021023.1.3-055"2
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"Mr President, I would like to extend my warmest thanks for the presence of history which can be sensed in many of the speeches made by my former colleagues and also for the commitment evident in the speeches by Mr Prodi, as President of the Commission, and Commissioner Verheugen. We have been able to see how we have come closer to our goal with every passing week. The week before last there came the Commission’s recommendation, which won the support of a substantial majority yesterday in Luxembourg. Last week there was the massive support for the enlargement project shown by the Irish. Yesterday, we achieved common positions on Kaliningrad, on the institutions, on certain calculation methods and, of course, also on the choice of countries.
It must therefore be said that there are now extremely high expectations for the meeting in Brussels on Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday, in which economic aspects are to be finalised, as Commissioner Verheugen so clearly put it. The economic position of the present Member States should be laid down in order to make time for negotiations with the new Member States.
I would like to thank Mr Poettering, Mr Brok and many others for the unconditional support which the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats has given to this whole enlargement project. I would also like to thank Mr Watson and many others for supporting the view that there must be no new conditions imposed. This was echoed by Mr Lund and Mr Andersson. Mr Barón Crespo was quite right in saying that, just as a marriage must be built on love, so enlargement must be built on popular support. Many people here have spoken about this and it could be a subject for my meeting with the Conference of Presidents at lunch, as it is of course up to Parliament in particular, and naturally also the Presidency and the European affairs ministers, to now get this public debate under way and garner popular support for the project.
On the other hand, I have to say that I was not impressed by the extremely unclear speeches made by Mr Sjöstedt, Mr Bonde and Mr Modrow. It was a good thing that the Irish voters did not pay any attention to this unholy alliance of old EU opponents, who have taken advantage of every single opportunity in their attempt to stall the European project. For that I thank the Irish voters.
To Mr Suominen I wish to say that we are maintaining close contact with Lithuania and Russia. Yesterday, the Council gave us a mandate to negotiate with Russia; and this is a mandate which fully respects both Lithuania’s sovereignty and its right to join cooperation on Schengen at the same time as its neighbours. The Presidency will do all in its power on Thursday, Friday and possibly Saturday to establish a common position on economic issues, too, which will make it possible to conclude negotiations with the new countries in Copenhagen.
We will be sleeping with our clothes on so that we do not miss a single opportunity to reach a compromise. Without wanting to jump the gun, we are incredibly pleased with all the progress made, which has brought us closer to a solution with every passing week. We must not now let the process be taken over by cold financial calculations of microscopic significance compared with the gains to be had by us all from enlargement. We must not end up stalling the whole process by investing our energies in small financial details. Perhaps we, the parliamentarians and governments, should try a little harder to explain to our citizens how little it costs per head. If we have to sit there on Friday evening and night discussing whether it is 50, 35 or 75 cents per head, how long would that take? One rapporteur said that the total cost of enlargement will be one tenth of the cost of German reunification. Another mentioned that, in total, enlargement will cost one tenth of one per cent of our GDP. This must not be allowed to compromise the historic task which awaits us. Warm thanks to the rapporteurs, the President of the Commission and Commissioner Verheugen. Thank you to Parliament for today reaffirming that there is a momentum in this historic process.
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