Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-19-Speech-2-151"

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"Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity, also on behalf of the Dutch Liberals, to express our support for the enlargement by the twelve countries with which negotiations are now under way. This is for historical reasons, which were repeated over and over again this morning, but also for political, economic and cultural reasons. We are in favour of enlargement, but I think that we should not further cover up the issue, which is made all the more pressing by the additional problems that the Big Bang will bring with it. Being a Member of the European Union is more difficult than becoming one. Most candidates seem to be making sufficient progress, but some of them have serious problems, particularly in the field of corruption, implementation of the acquis, administrative capacity and independent financial control. Whilst the Commission's progress reports are excellent, we are not yet convinced that the accession of all ten will be able to take place in 2004. We will evaluate this at the end of the negotiations. The Commission's regime of progress monitoring and safeguard clauses can sometimes provide the answer, but this fine instrument can only be deployed to a limited extent. In countries where the rule of law does not prevail, the safeguard clauses will not be of any help. What is the Commission's view on this? After all, what does the EU stand for if essential principles such as the rule of law are not in place? We take the view, moreover, that these conditions should apply not only to acceding countries, but also to the current Fifteen. A positive example is the report by Mr Jan Mulder in the Committee on Budgetary Control. This brings me to the final problem, that being that the EU's internal decision-making process is far from structured. We would like the forthcoming IGC to have an outcome that contributes to solving all kinds of bottlenecks, such as codecision of Parliament and the Council, public access to the Council's legislative meetings, repeal of the right of veto in the Council and the election of the President of the European Commission by the European Parliament or by the electorate. If, as in Nice, the IGC does not solve institutional bottlenecks, is there a plan B we can fall back on? This is a question for the Council. At any rate, we should, above all, vote in favour of a fair-minded enlargement in April 2003."@en1

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