Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-01-Speech-3-029"
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"en.20041201.10.3-029"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr Schulz, Mr Geremek, having spent last weekend in Kiev, I would like to start by adding a few words to the discussion on violence. Having had many meetings and conversations in Kiev, my impression is that violence is not being threatened by those who have pitched their tents in the city’s streets, or by those who have been demonstrating there for ten days and upwards. If there is the threat of violence, it comes from the former powers, and of that problem we must be aware if we are going there.
Just what does crisis management mean in this situation? Crisis management can in fact only mean an attempt on our part to bring into being what these orange revolutionaries, who are indeed far more than a Yushchenko party, are calling for. What that means in plain language is that the run-off election must be repeated, that the re-run must be in December and no later, and that adequate provision must be made for the election to be observed. Having failed to cover ourselves with glory when observing the last election, we Europeans really must get much more involved this time.
I think it important that Mr Saryusz-Wolski said that Ukraine had seemed a long way away. That was self-criticism on his part, and I think we Europeans should be self-critical today. I am glad that Members from Poland and other countries in the East that already, thank God, belong to the European Union, are being more far-sighted about policy on Ukraine than the rest of the EU. For that, Mr Geremek, I am very grateful to you and to others, and I am proud of what you have achieved.
So much of our discussion of the Ukraine focuses on interests. Again and again, I hear people talking about Putin’s interests, about Russia’s interests, about American interests, about Europeans’ interests and about geostrategic interests, but, since coming back from Kiev, what I find lacking is any understanding, at the end of the day, among ourselves, that this mass movement in Ukraine is, at the moment, about the Ukrainians’ interests. If we do not put that centre stage in the debate and in our diplomacy, there is a very great risk of failure.
I am glad that we are setting out this very evening and that this joint delegation of the European Parliament has at last been put together. I had hoped it would come to pass last weekend, but better late than never. What I brought away with me from last weekend – and I think that will be our common experience – was that, after all our debates about European values and where in the world they are being realised, it does you a power of good to spend a few days in Kiev, for that, if anywhere in Europe, is where you can really feel that Europe shares a soul. I hope that the delegation we are sending there will be what you want, what all the Members of this House want, and that we will be able to put flesh on the core demand – to which I referred at the outset – of the wearers of orange, the pressure from whom we too have needed."@en1
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