Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-19-Speech-2-089"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20021119.2.2-089"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first to express very warm thanks to Mr Brok and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy for the report that has been presented, which demonstrates that the matter in hand has been gone into in considerable depth. I would also like to express my gratitude for the very good cooperation that we have built up over the years. It is a bit like the mood before Christmas, in which season we find ourselves, when you know you are doing something for the last time, and this is probably the last time that I will be able to thank the Committee on Foreign Affairs for its cooperation, at any rate as regards the big enlargement package.
As regards Bulgaria and Romania, the Council yesterday adopted the Commission's proposal for a more fully developed pre-accession strategy for both these countries, which applies to each country separately, so that there is no concerted strategy, but one for Bulgaria and one for Romania. There is a difference from previous timetables for negotiations in that we used to always specify dates by which specific decisions had to be taken concerning the negotiations. That is no longer necessary in this case, as nearly all the chapters have already been opened. We are now setting benchmarks both in the short and medium terms, as well as those with reference to the date of accession, which each country should have reached by a specific point in time in order that accession, planned for 2007, can go ahead.
After that, that is to say, post-Copenhagen – as was said in this House this morning – the parliaments will have their moment, when the political decision-making process is set in motion. I do not need to say very much about this at this juncture, other than that the Commission will obviously be available to help Parliament in every way possible during the first months of 2003, which will be crucial. No matter which committee or forum asks for expert advice or expresses a need for discussion, we will be there for them. That is for us the Number One priority at the beginning of next year, and President Prodi will have more to say about that when, tomorrow, he stands here and presents our work programme. I believe that Parliament and the Commission will, together, be able to get on top of this extremely difficult task.
I would now like to say something more about Turkey, an issue that will also have a part to play next year. I agree with the whole of what Mr Brok said – it could have been me speaking – about how the Turkey that will be able to join the European Union will be a quite different Turkey. It is precisely that that we want to make easier by means of the pre-accession process. I have to say that I do not see why we are to dispense with a strategy that has been so successful. It was what we did in Helsinki, more than anything that had preceded it, that got the process of change in Turkey really moving. As regards the date, the Commission has made its preference perfectly clear. The Commission continues to insist on all the candidates being treated equally, which means that we can only talk in terms of a date for opening negotiations when the political criteria have indeed been fulfilled, which they very definitely have not been so far.
I also want to tell you that this issue has been brought up quite unilaterally, and without consultation, by the Turks. Never and nowhere has there been any discussion of the possibility of naming a date for the commencement of negotiations before the political criteria have been fulfilled. That is a unilateral demand on the part of Turkey, and neither I nor the Commission are willing simply to give in to a situation in which the other side steps up the pressure and says: ‘If you do not give in to this pressure, you are causing a crisis in relations between us.’ That is not the way we should be treating each other.
That is something I want to make absolutely clear.
Related to that is the Cyprus question, on which I would like to say something briefly; here, too, I think that the Helsinki strategy is proving to be the right one. We would not have got where we are today without the Helsinki conclusions. I have always taken the view that, when things move in Cyprus, they do so very, very late in the day, which means that two things have to be made abundantly clear in political terms. Firstly, and whatever happens in the twenty-three days that remain to us, the decision on the accessions – including Cyprus' – must be taken at Copenhagen. It cannot be delayed; it is the fulcrum and pivot of the whole strategy. The solution we want is of course accession on the basis of fundamental agreement on the package proposed by Kofi Annan, but it goes without saying that it would also be possible to come to the necessary decisions in Copenhagen and then continue with the political process that is meant to bring about a peaceful solution in Cyprus. It is very definitely not being said that the decision in Copenhagen will represent an end to the peace-making effort if matters have not already been brought to a conclusion before Copenhagen.
A whole range of issues have been raised in connection with the United Nations' proposals, and these touch on the peace plan's compatibility with European Community law. I want to take this opportunity to reiterate that there are certain things that are not negotiable. They are requirements that must be met. A Member State must, for example, be capable of contributing to our institutions' decision-making and must speak with one voice. It must possess structures of central government strong enough to realise and enforce Community law, and it must adhere to and defend our core values and principles, these being democracy, human rights, the protection of minorities and so on.
The United Nations knew this to be an absolute
from our point of view, and, having carried out an initial and careful scrutiny, I believe that I can say that the proposals comply with these conditions. That leaves us with a second difficulty: what is asked of us is a consequence of the principle of two zones and two communities on which the proposal is founded. What is being asked of us involves the adaptation of the acquis communautaire. I do not think it necessary for us to engage with these questions at the present moment, but we should do so when they are put to us by those who want to live together in this state in the future. For as long as they do not express their desire for this state, we do not, I believe, need to answer the question of which rules for co-existing in it are compatible with the acquis communautaire. The important thing is that we should not be giving anyone the opportunity to use reference to Community law as a way of evading responsibility for the political decision that now has to be taken.
At the end of the day, this is about getting the final result accepted in the Member States and the candidate countries, and so I will say quite clearly that the final package for every single candidate country must also come complete with a decent measure of generosity on our part. There is no room here for small-mindedness. We are also getting to the point where we simply have to say that these concerns and aspirations are justified, and that, politically speaking, there will be no other way of explaining to people why joining the EU is the right thing for them to do. In that event, we will have to meet the candidate countries halfway and make it clear that there will under no circumstances be such a thing as second-class membership. I am very grateful to the Council Presidency for having already made this clear with reference to the Intergovernmental Conference. The Commission takes the same view. Once negotiations are completed, the countries that have done so will be participants with equal rights in the Intergovernmental Conference, and, moreover, right from the word go. The same applies to the Commission. All I want to say about safeguards and transitional periods is that these are perfectly normal instruments, which are intended to prevent us getting unpleasant surprises. They are nothing more than a necessary way of dealing with risks.
I want to include in this expression of gratitude Parliament as a whole and in particular its President, Pat Cox. I regard the initiative that Parliament has devised today as truly worthy of a European Parliament and a demonstration of the fact that those who represent Europe's citizens here do not take enlargement to be a technical process, but rather a crucial part of giving our continent political unity. It has also been made clear today that this process of enlargement has, if I may say so, a soul as well.
I consider the work done by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, which is shortly to be completed, to be a valuable and important help in the final stage of these negotiations, and I would like to give voice to the hope that we will succeed, with the head of steam we are building up, in speeding up the train on the final stretch of its journey and enabling it to arrive punctually at the terminus in Copenhagen.
It has to be said that 2002 was a race over hurdles. If I may be permitted a brief reminiscence, the problems that we were faced with at the beginning of this year, and the things that have passed before our eyes, included the acquisition of land in Poland, the decommissioning of the Ignalina power plant, the Beneš decrees in the Czech Republic, elections in Slovakia, the Irish referendum, the Kaliningrad issue, and, finally, the financial package. We really have gone from one obstacle to another, but we have been able to surmount them all. Only one single hurdle still lies before us, and that is agreement on the final negotiation package.
Yesterday, the General Affairs Council gave the Presidency and the Commission a clear mandate, along with the required flexibility and the necessary powers, to conduct substantive
and immediate talks with the candidate countries, which will involve submitting to them final packages tailor-made for each individual country. There will be no package of proposals applying to all of them, but we will be meeting each country halfway and attempting to give sufficient attention to those of each country's problems that are still on the table. We are able to do that because we had two rounds of intensive discussions with the candidate countries immediately following the Brussels meeting of the European Council, and these were concerned with putting on the table everything that is as yet undecided. I have already reported on this to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
A large number of bilateral issues remain to be sorted out directly with the countries concerned. These range from extraordinarily difficult issues such as, for example, the whole Polish and Hungarian problem with competition, to this or that rather bizarre special case, which has to be taken into account under the circumstances, as it can have an influence – a very great influence, moreover – on public opinion.
On the other hand, this round has taught us that the horizontal issues are in fact seen in the same light everywhere. Here we are dealing with familiar topics, of which there are, in essence, four, all of them closely interconnected. In the Budget chapter, there is the cash flow problem, especially in the first year. There is the issue of the pressure that the financial package as a whole will put on the candidate countries' budgets in 2004, 2005 and 2006. Let me say this in order to clarify what I mean: the rules under which European funds are made available very definitely amount to an imposition on these countries' budgets. In one instance or another, this imposition results in the need to make substantial cuts in areas where I am sure nobody in this House would be happy to have cuts made. Nevertheless, the country has no other option available to it if it wants to make full use of the funds available. We are trying to find a way forward here which will enable us to avoid problems of this sort with budgets.
The Brussels Council, like yesterday's General Affairs Council, on the one hand again confirmed the boundaries
within which we have to operate, but also established a certain degree of flexibility, and I want to elucidate what this flexibility involves. Admittedly, for example, the Council did say that we would reduce the funds set aside for the Structural and Cohesion Funds by EUR 2.5 billion – I might add, by the way, that it did so with the Commission's agreement, because we too had come to the conclusion that it could be expected to be extremely difficult, over the three years, to actually fully incorporate these funds into the programming. But it did not change the upper limit for expenditure decided on in Berlin. When we point out that the Berlin framework has to be strictly adhered to and that the decisions taken in Brussels cannot be altered either, it follows that there is a certain amount of room for manoeuvre.
Looking carefully at what the Franco-German compromise, which brought about agreement in the Council, said about direct payments, one sees that it is only in the third year in which direct payments are to be made – 2006, when they will reach 35% – that what was decided in Brussels will be affected. Agricultural expenditure is to be fixed at the 2006 level. There is no mention of either 2005 or 2004. I want to use these two examples to demonstrate that we are right to say that what is on the table is not an offer that can only be either accepted in its entirety or rejected. Rather, it leaves a certain amount of room in which negotiations can be conducted in a sensible way.
Once Copenhagen is over, the candidate countries will have do what the Committee on Foreign Affairs' reports demand of them, that is, concentrate, with our help, on acknowledged deficiencies and weaknesses. We will again report in detail on the results of these efforts. Now that 1 May 2004 has been fixed as the date for the accessions, this final report will be put before the Council and Parliament on 1 November, and quite conceivably on 31 October 2003, thus creating another opportunity for insisting that the commitments they have made should actually be met."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples