Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-09-Speech-3-155"
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"en.20030409.4.3-155"2
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".
I voted in favour of all the reports concerning the accession of the 10 new Member States. The reunification of Eastern and Western Europe is for us an historical challenge. It can no longer be delayed. Minor differences must not be allowed to obstruct it.
Enlargement has already taken too long. As we suggested, the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe should have been admitted to a kind of Greater European Confederation back in the early 1990s. This confederation would have been a forum with a variable geometry type of approach. It would have allowed specific types of cooperation to be developed to suit each country.
This approach would have required a U-turn in the process of European integration however, to bring in flexibility. The Commission expressed its opposition. It found ways of imposing a different approach. The Eastern countries were forced to wait until the superstate was ready before being allowed in.
We wish to reiterate that this is the wrong approach. It has embittered the candidate countries and has failed to enable them to reach a good standard. Nonetheless, we need to say ‘yes’ now, in the hope that these countries will help us to change the Union from the inside."@en1
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