Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-09-Speech-3-024"
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, you will today be deciding on one of the most important questions for the future of our continent. You alone, in the European Parliament, have the right to say yes or no to the accessions of ten new Member States. No other parliament in Europe will have the opportunity to say yes or no to individual countries; all the others will merely have to ratify the treaty as a whole. This means that this decision is certainly one of the most important that this House has had to take in all its history.
We are talking about Slovenia, a country that tried to go its own way even in the days when Tito ruled Yugoslavia, which, as soon as Communism had collapsed in Yugoslavia, set a determined
course for Europe and which, having secured 90% support in a referendum on accession to the European Union, has shown how attractive our Europe still is to young nations.
Lastly, we are talking about Malta and Cyprus, two countries that want to join with us in maintaining and defending our common values and objectives in the Mediterranean. Those are the countries and peoples of whom we speak.
You, honourable Members, have for many years accompanied these countries on their journey towards the European Union. I can only confirm what has already been said here. As regards the strategy and the individual steps, there was close understanding between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council. I am deeply grateful for the constructive teamwork that this made possible. There is no doubt that the success of the project depended on it.
For me, then, to say a word of thanks to you, Mr President, is not a required formality, for I really do feel profoundly indebted to you, to the Group Presidents, to the rapporteur and chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, to the rapporteurs on the individual countries and to the joint chairs of the joint parliamentary committees. All of you have made an important and indispensable contribution to the success that we have achieved. You have not always made things easy for me, but that is not what Parliament is for. I would, though, like to say that your observations, your interventions and also your criticisms have helped to highlight problems more clearly and enable common solutions to them to be found.
The President-in-Office of the Council has observed that we are now on the threshold of signing the Accession Treaties, which is due to be done on 16 April in Athens. He has already mentioned the great symbolic significance of this place. It is not only where democracy was given to the world, but also the source of a few other old European ideas, such as the idea that societies must be governed justly, and the idea that it is the responsibility of individuals that holds a community together.
Those are a few ideas that we are not keen to abandon. However old they may be, they are still tremendously up to date. In this place, we are showing how Europe's national identities and cultures, which we value so much and which we want to defend, arise and flourish from strong common roots.
Once the Accession Treaty is signed, it will have to be ratified. I am firmly confident that the referendums to be held in the future Member States will all produce an unambiguous and convincing yes to Europe, showing that the European project is gaining new impetus and new dynamism.
I do not envisage any insuperable political difficulties resulting from the ratification process in the individual Member States, and am confident that ratification will be completed in due time. I would nonetheless like to reiterate the need for efforts at communicating with the public and informing them to be stepped up, so that the citizens in the Member States may really know what is going on. While we are not running an election campaign, we are ready to inform, to explain and to answer the questions that citizens are quite entitled to ask.
This is where I have to say something again about Cyprus. It is something I have said before; that it really is deeply sad that we have got to within centimetres of the goal, but have ended up not managing to find a political solution to the Cyprus question. The chances of resolving the conflict in Cyprus have never been as great or as strong as they are now, but we must not abandon our efforts. I again want to underline the Commission's willingness to support any further efforts by the United Nations to find even now a lasting political solution to the Cyprus problem. The Commission will therefore do whatever it can to promote projects in Cyprus that help to reduce and alleviate the increasing disparities on the island and to foster trust between the two – Greek and Turkish – communities there.
The work in the candidate countries is not yet complete. Reforms have to be proceeded with and no effort must be spared in pressing on with preparations for accession. I can assure you that the Commission will monitor very closely how commitments made in the course of negotiations are implemented. Six months prior to the accession date, that is, this autumn, the Commission will submit a comprehensive monitoring
report, in which we will list in detail the areas in which safety precautions might be considered if omissions are not rectified in due time. A first phase of monitoring has already been completed, and its results were, I might add, remarkable when one considers the thousands of undertakings that had been given; having examined these, we found only 25 instances in which we had asked future Member States to take urgent action in order to avoid delays. That adds up to a very good result. Apart from that, I am able to inform Parliament that in all these instances, the measures requested by us have now been taken.
We are, then, for the time being, at the end of a long, long road, a road marked by the determination to put an end to the division of Europe once and for all. I am eternally grateful for the way that the European Parliament has never wavered in its support. I believe that it is worthy of note that the European Parliament was equalled by few in Europe in keeping the open wound of the divided Europe a live issue even during the Cold War, putting the case for a European future in which its peoples could determine their destiny in freedom and by democratic means.
I have this to say to the future Member States. The development of efficient administration and of a properly functioning judicial system must, even after accession, be continued with and supported. The fight against corruption and criminality continues to be of fundamental importance. The upholding of human rights and the protection of minorities are still on the agenda. Although many countries have succeeded in coming a long way, some issues remain open and there are still challenges of which the enlarged Union must remain aware.
The same applies to the actual implementation of equality of opportunity, an area that still causes me some concern, not only in the new Member States, but also in one or two of the present ones. This is about what impact the transformation of a society has on its weakest members.
Whilst I am sure that the European Parliament will, today, open the door wide to the ten new Member States, I am also aware that, at the moment of decision, not everyone in this House, and not all the European public at large, will be completely free of doubts about the enlargement process. Some may wonder what we are letting ourselves in for, and others whether the Union will be put under too great a strain. To this I would like to respond by saying that it is true that the integration we have achieved to date has been a success, and that we have gained peace, reconciliation and prosperity. At the same time, though, we in Europe have had to pay a high price, especially those whom the end of the Second World War, and its political consequences, obliged to live behind the Iron Curtain. It is they who have had to pay for it all, for Europe, divided, knew no real peace and only incomplete freedom.
Only now have we been handed this opportunity by the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, who never reconciled themselves to being cut off from the free part of this continent. So I do believe that we must now seize this opportunity to shape the future in such a way that twenty-first century Europe will be characterised by peace and freedom, security and prosperity.
So let me give straight answers to these crucial questions. Are the new Member States sufficiently prepared, both politically and economically? To that, I say that this is the best-prepared enlargement in the history of the EU. The prospect of enlargement was combined with a far-reaching reform process in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and gave direction to this transformation. Not everything will be perfect, and I can predict that there will be difficulties, but the Commission is firmly convinced that the Community's policies and programmes will work even when there are twenty-five Member States.
Will the new Member States support further integration, or will integration grind to a halt? The answer is perfectly clear. It is in the interests of the new Member States to want a strong Community. They will strengthen, rather than weaken, the Community idea, and they deceive themselves who believe that we are being joined by Member States who will eventually cause the European Union to revert to being a free trade area. This is what will not happen; rather, what we will be getting is new enthusiasm, new zest and new dynamism.
Do the new Member States understand that Europe is a community of values rather than a system for transferring money? To this, too, the answer is clearly ‘yes’. I made that clear earlier when I briefly spoke about the past that the new Member States have behind them. They do not need us to give them lessons in democracy. They are also, of course, counting on solidarity, but is not the least consideration that such solidarity is equally in our own interest? I know that the new members will not pursue narrow national interests.
Will the new Member States allow themselves to be part of a common European foreign policy? Here too, I say ‘yes’, an emphatic ‘yes’! The problems we have had in recent months did not come about because the new Member States did not want to fall in line; they arose because we could not answer the question of what was the common European position to which they might adhere.
What this means for the new Member States is clear. It means that only a strong common foreign policy can protect them from such conflicts, and that is why they are all in favour of such a combined approach.
The primary subject of our discussions today is human destiny and the fate of peoples. Today, we are talking about the people in Europe – over 70 million of them – who have looked forward to this day with boundless hope and expectation, but whose courage and determination have also made straight the way for a free and united Europe. These peoples naturally belong among us, and they have earned their place in our midst. These millions of people have for many years shouldered the burden of difficult and radical reforms and changes in order to build modern societies. If I might take a sideways glance at reform policy or discussion about reforms in one or other existing Member State, my comment is that I wish those Member States implemented reforms with at least some of the strength, courage and determination that we have found in the future Member States.
The last question, honourable Members, is one we must ask of ourselves. Are we ourselves sufficiently prepared? My answer to that has to be more tentative. From the technical point of view, we are. All the decisions the organisation of enlargement requires have been taken, but I do believe that enlargement means that reforms which would have been urgent in any case, have now become even more urgent and must not on any account be further delayed. That is why the Convention's work is so important and must be crowned with success. There are those who say that it would have been better to do all this beforehand. That may be so, but I know that we could not leave the European peoples, who have for thirteen years been preparing for this great moment, waiting any longer. To them I say that the European home into which they are due to move is not yet ready. They now have the opportunity to join in the discussions and decisions on what that home should actually look like.
By the time the ten new Member States have joined us, we will have made further progress in negotiations with Romania and Bulgaria. Both are approaching the goal. There will very soon be 27 of us, and only then will the present enlargement round be over. Helsinki, in 1999, saw the door opened to Turkey, which, in Copenhagen, last December, was given the political road map. The decision on whether or not Turkey meets the political conditions for accession will be taken at the end of next year. I encourage Turkey to keep on its course towards Europe, and the Commission can be relied upon to make a fair and objective judgment.
The Balkan countries have prospects of accession. The time it will take to turn these prospects into reality will be dependent on their own efforts to carry out reforms. Honourable Members, whilst the imminent enlargement does not guarantee Europe political and economic strength, it does improve our chances and make us more able to fit Europe to the challenges of the twenty-first century and to offer its citizens a century of peaceful development, personal freedom and individual opportunity. Now that, today, the decision is upon us, I therefore ask you to vote in favour!
Who are the peoples we are talking about? What will they bring to the European Union? The Poles have their thousand years of history as a European nation that, being obliged to live under Communist hegemony and martial law for many years, never even for one day resigned itself to its fate, but instead defended themselves, becoming the undoubted originators of the great movement in Central and Eastern Europe that eventually led to the total collapse of Communist rule in Europe.
We are talking about the Hungarians, who rose up as long ago as 1956. Last week, I was speaking in Hungary, and in my speech I said that no doubt all European politicians of my generation still had the cries for help from the leaders of the 1956 Hungarian uprising ringing in our ears, that we could not forget them, and that these cries for help even today, fifty years later, still represented a beacon for the European democracies. Fifty years had to pass before we could give the right response.
We are talking about the Slovaks and the Czechs, whose attempt, in 1968, to change the course of European history resulted in much suffering for them, and who, with Charter 77, also made a significant intellectual contribution to freeing Europe from totalitarianism and dictatorship.
We are talking about the Lithuanians, the Latvians and the Estonians, victims of the Second World War whom nobody had asked whether they wanted to be part of the Soviet Union, who, for decades worked desperately to maintain their national and cultural identity in the face of a policy of Russification, and who succeeded in doing so.
When one person or another says, as they sometimes do, that we have to take great care not to accept new Member States that might not share our values, I am sometimes tempted to ask who it was who once, unarmed, faced up to Soviet tanks! That happened in Vilnius, just over ten years ago."@en1
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