Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-11-Speech-2-073"
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"en.20030211.4.2-073"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen representing the Member States, although we approve of the general objective of the Marset-Campos report, aimed at strengthening links with Belarus, as ought moreover to be done in the case of Russia, we are unable to approve either the conditions it sets for doing so or the ways and means to which it intends giving preference. Indeed, we are in the process of giving wider currency to what, if I may put it this way, is the form of justice we are applying to Iraq. In other words, our aim is to choose regimes rather than recognise states.
It is a form of logic that may have far-reaching consequences. In fact, it is not for us to pass judgment upon governments. Mr Lukashenko’s regime does not perhaps meet the criteria of our democracies which are themselves, moreover, far from being perfect and, even, increasingly devoid of any content as national sovereignty is progressively relinquished. That being said, my stay in Minsk, to which I was sent by Parliament, enabled me to observe that, in spite of everything, democracy is making real progress there, that the word pluralism is not completely out of place and, above all, that President Lukashenko enjoys a certain legitimacy. This is explained by the fact that, following the collapse of the Soviet regime, he has replaced a succession of ephemeral governments which had exasperated the Belorusian population by, firstly, privatising everything left, right and centre, including even essential public services which thereupon came under the control of Western firms and, secondly and above all, by attempting to detach Belarus from Russia, something to which the Belorusian people could not consent.
Nor is it up to us, as advocated by the report, either to encourage the opposition or any political party whatsoever or, in fact, to turn NGOs into instruments for use in subversion operations. Nor is it up to us to choose this or that economic model for Belarus. Ladies and gentlemen, these are extremely dangerous routes to go down, for there is no way in which international society can live in peace if, by virtue of being rich and strong, a state or states claim the right to overthrow those governments they do not like and, in their place, to designate governments after their own fashion. There could be no peace under these conditions.
Let us therefore respect states as they are and peoples as they are. Whatever may happen, Belarus is a part of Europe and has been so for centuries. It will at any event be an important partner for our countries and, of course, very much so in the case of France."@en1
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