Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-03-09-Speech-2-251"
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"en.20040309.9.2-251"2
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"I ask the Members of this Parliament not to draw any particular conclusions from the fact that I am representing Commissioner Patten here today, but it has worked out rather well, as I am perhaps in a better position than he is to respond to your comments. What, then, is at issue here? The issue is that the Thessaloniki Council asked whether we could not draw a few conclusions from the successful progress of the enlargement process with a view to bringing the countries of the Western Balkans closer to the European Union more effectively.
The question was a simple one: are there lessons that we have learnt, are there instruments that have been successful in that process, and which we could apply here as well, subject to any necessary adjustments? The answer to it is ‘yes’. In the case of the accession countries we had the ‘Europe Agreements’ as a legal basis. These correspond to the Stabilisation and Association Agreements with the Western Balkan countries. We developed the ‘Accession Partnerships’ as an instrument for implementing those Europe Agreements, and I will tell you in a moment why that was a good thing. The corresponding instrument in the Stabilisation and Association Process will be the European Partnerships, because we could not very well talk about ‘Accession Partnerships’.
The great advantage of this instrument is that it is very flexible, very exact, easy to monitor, and that progress can be assessed very precisely. It is the Commission's intention to prepare these partnerships following exactly the same pattern as for the Accession Partnerships. That involves describing in precise terms what is to happen in the first year, as a short-term priority in other words, in all areas – political governance, economic governance, adoption of the
and then medium-term priorities, for which we will give ourselves two or three years, and lastly the long-term priorities. The big advantage of all this is that it can be checked and fine-tuned at any time, and that the other instruments at our disposal can then be adjusted to meet the objectives of these partnerships, for example the technical assistance instrument that we intend to use in future. But I also have in mind the instruments already at our disposal and all the other instruments available.
I can tell you from my own experience of the enlargement process that this instrument will be helpful, that it is a very manageable instrument, and one with which we had very good experience during enlargement. I therefore urge you to at least give this instrument a chance. I would like to ask my friend Mr Swoboda to perhaps give the instrument two chances, and in a year's time we will be very happy to carry out a joint assessment of whether or not it has achieved anything. I am quite convinced, though, that it is an instrument that will help the Western Balkan countries, which will be more manageable for them, and which will make the direction in which the whole process should proceed clearer and more credible. For that reason I can indeed give this instrument my wholehearted support."@en1
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