Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-06-Speech-3-048"
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"en.20021106.6.3-048"2
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"Mr President, over the last month, serious momentum has been building up with regard to the process of EU enlargement and the fulfilment of our political vision in this respect. In fact, a trinity of events has taken place which has guaranteed that the pace of EU enlargement has accelerated and is now an unstoppable process.
In conclusion, when it comes to addressing the challenges of EU enlargement, certainty, determination and commitment are all words that can be used to sum up the opinions of the vast majority of the people living in Europe as well as those of legislators working on these important issues within the different EU institutions.
Firstly, on 9 October 2002, the Commission concluded that 10 candidate countries were in a position to accede to the European Union.
Secondly, on 19 October 2002, the Irish people approved the provisions of the Treaty of Nice, which ensure that EU enlargement can take place within an agreed timeframe.
Thirdly, the EU leaders in Brussels on 24 October 2002 endorsed the findings of the European Commission that 10 countries fulfil the necessary political and economic criteria to assume membership of the EU by 2004.
I welcome the Brussels Summit decision to allow the European Union to present negotiating positions to the candidate countries on all outstanding issues by early November. This will ensure that enlargement negotiations can be concluded by the Copenhagen Summit of EU leaders in December 2002. A target date of April 2003 has also been set for accession treaties to be signed in Athens under the presidency of the Greek Government.
There are now elements of both legal and political certainty with regard to the enlargement negotiations. We are shortly going to cross the final hurdles so as to bring about the accession of 10 new Member States to the Union.
The momentum towards EU enlargement is bringing real challenges to the EU institutions in terms of implementing the internal changes as laid down in the Treaty of Nice. This includes a range of issues including the extension of qualified majority voting at Council level, the re-weighting of votes in the Council, the extension of codecision measures to the European Parliament and the reform of the European Commission.
The future financing of EU enlargement was a centre-stage issue at the Brussels Summit. It is clear from the Presidency Conclusions that the financial perspective, as laid down in Berlin in 1999, is going to be respected in its entirety. The cost of the EU enlargement will be borne from within the budgetary parameters of the Berlin Agreement. It is also clear that programmes such as the present CAP arrangements for the period 2000-2006 are not going to be affected by the decision of the EU leaders in Brussels. This is only right and proper because our farmers, their families and rural communities were all given legitimate expectations by the CAP deal of spring 1999. They were told how the common agricultural policy was going to operate for a seven year period until 2006 and they were basing their commercial decisions on this framework as laid down in the Berlin Agreement.
As the corollary decision to this decision taken by the EU leaders, the mid-term review of the common agricultural policy will be just that – a review of the CAP rather than a reform. This may not be music to the ears of the proponents of sweeping CAP reform but that is the reality of the conclusions of the Brussels Summit."@en1
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