Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-18-Speech-3-031"
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"en.20021218.3.3-031"2
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"Mr President, I should first like to add my voice to the hearty congratulations to the Danish Presidency. I think that the Presidency and the Commission have done an outstanding job on enlargement. The result has garnered many positive adjectives along the way, and I should like to join in with those who say that almost all the words have now been used up; but I concur with what has been said, and I would just say that, in my opinion, Denmark can perhaps be pleased about two things in particular.
It was in 1993, during the Danish Presidency, that the conditions for enlargement were laid down, and now, ten years later, we have the opportunity to close the cycle during a Danish Presidency, too. I think that this is a very good thing.
The second thing that I should like to emphasise is the additional opportunity we have which is peculiar to our region of Europe. We now have a region surrounding the Baltic Sea which almost exclusively consists of Member States of the European Union. I believe that this presents some good opportunities, and we may have high expectations for the situation. Even if the end of the summit was perhaps somewhat mercenary – it often is – this cannot overshadow the big picture. Quite simply, we cannot pass a more secure, more democratic basis on to future generations than the strong community that has been created here.
We must also realise that, once the New Year celebrations are over, our feet must be back on the ground, and, in any case, too many major tasks await us – as they do the new countries. One of these is to push the EU legislation through effectively in the new countries: implement it in practice in both administrative and legal terms, so that the EU’s standards are indeed respected. The other is to do with agriculture. The way in which the compromise on the budget was reached has perhaps not made it any easier to envisage the necessary, proper agricultural reform. We all know that the common agricultural policy, as it stands, is grotesque and is very detrimental to the developing countries. In my opinion, this really is a field in which there will be a need for political courage and responsibility in the future, too.
I wish to close with a few words about Turkey. As you know, two things were made clear as far as Turkey is concerned, which in my opinion are very important. One of them is that it is a candidate country that can join on the same conditions as other candidate countries. The other is that if the Commission, in December 2004, can establish that the criteria – the political criteria – have been met, the Council will also take a decision on starting accession negotiations. This is a great opportunity for Turkey. It is now up to Turkey itself to take this opportunity: the ball is in the court of the Turkish Government. We can establish that today, at any rate, none of the political criteria – democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and the protection of minorities – have been met in Turkey; so there remains a real need for further reforms, and there is above all a need to implement the reforms. It was, however, a prudent decision that was taken on Turkey last week in the European Council.
Once more, thank you for a superb Presidency and congratulations on the result."@en1
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