Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-19-Speech-2-096"
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"en.20021119.2.2-096"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are living through one of the most important periods in modern European history. All of us, nations, governments, parliaments, and we here in the European Parliament, are starting and writing a new chapter, with vision and realism, with hope and firmness. And every country, every nation, must feel equal and secure within this development.
In this sense, Lithuania – for which I am acting as rapporteur – must not feel, when it comes to the final arrangements for Kaliningrad, that it has been treated differently, as far as its sovereignty is concerned, from the other Member States of the European Union.
Malta, for which I am the Socialist Group's shadow rapporteur, has nothing to fear. Besides, all of us Mediterranean people, especially those of us from the islands, know that the human spirit creates and develops against the deep blue of the sea and sky and that, as sure as night follows day, the creative spirit will win through.
The political determination of the Union, which must not tolerate any conceptions which might allow third parties to intervene in Union's activities, is being judged in Cyprus, the most institutionally and economically advanced of the candidate countries. The Union's determination to support any solution that respects the acquis communautaire and the need for the Republic of Cyprus to be an operational state is also being judged. That being so, the integration of Cyprus in the European Union is a foregone conclusion, irrespective of progress made in resolving the political problem.
I trust that Romania and Bulgaria will soon become members of the European Union. I think Romania in particular is being treated a little more harshly than the other countries and I must point out that its quota of parliamentarians is out of proportion to its population.
As a Greek, I expect that Turkey will soon become a fully paid-up member of the European Union. By which I mean a democratic Turkey, like all the other European countries. Kemal Ataturk, who planned a modern state for the Turkish people, will be vindicated once all the institutional reforms have been completed and implemented, once the military leadership obeys and executes the decisions taken by the democratic political leadership in Turkey. I am positive that the new political leadership in Turkey has realised that the way to build Europe is through democratic procedure, not eastern haggling.
Finally, we are not accountants. We are politicians who need to pave the way for the new Europe with visionary realism and that is precisely what we shall be judged on and that is where we shall be vindicated. As a Greek, I wait and hope, as do you Commissioner, for the Treaty for the new Europe of the twenty-first century to be signed in Athens, in the shadow of Pericles' Acropolis, of Pnyka Hill, the site of the Municipal Church, and of the tribune from which Saint Paul preached to the Athenians."@en1
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