Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-21-Speech-3-024"
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"en.20040421.1.3-024"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Verheugen, at the request of the Conference of Presidents, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy has drawn up a report, based on Mr Poos's work, which is intended to provide assurances from our perspective too that guarantees will be upheld and that the Annan Plan can indeed be implemented without any major problems for citizens.
We must understand that on issues of this kind, the people will ask questions, and that this type of solution cannot regulate every aspect to every individual's full satisfaction. This is true, for example, of property issues, resettlement, or the compromises on the stationing of troops. It must be clear that everyone can exercise their rights, and this includes the lodging of complaints to the courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg. However, we must also make it clear that a positive solution to these questions and the unification of the island will generally improve conditions for people on both sides of the demarcation line, and therefore no individual issue should stand in the way of this chance to achieve an overall solution.
I believe – and this is the view of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, which I have the honour to represent – that a compromise had to be found, and that under the present circumstances, the compromise put forward is fair. However, as the European Community, we must also ensure that the people have confidence in this plan, and we should work actively to ensure that this confidence is underpinned on our side too. That is why I think it is important that paragraphs 13 and 14 of Mr Poos's motion for a resolution clearly urge all the international institutions which have a stake in this process to provide guarantees that the Annan Plan will indeed be implemented, and that the European Parliament, through its permanent bodies, will monitor implementation to ensure that these guarantees are being upheld, thus ensuring that the reunification benefits the people themselves.
I myself became a Member of this House at a time when my country was still divided. The situation is not entirely comparable. Cyprus is not a divided nation; here, there are two different nations in one country. That is the difference. Nonetheless, I believe that we must recognise that although problems may arise with this type of reunification, overall, the benefits for both sides far outweigh the costs. For this reason, we are saying that the citizens of Cyprus have the right to decide for themselves on an independent and sovereign basis. We must also recognise that in a community such as Europe, we must support each other in order to ensure that we can live together within our community on the basis of trust, and that means that pledges must be honoured. On that basis, we are asking the people of Cyprus to endorse the plan. We can do no more than that. At the first donors conference which took place last week, we agreed substantial sums of money and signalled our willingness to support this process by appropriate means.
I hope that on this basis, and in the spirit described by Commissioner Verheugen, who has been highly committed to this issue for years, a positive outcome can still be achieved on Saturday."@en1
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