Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-01-Speech-3-045"
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"en.20041201.10.3-045"2
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"I should like to thank both the European Commission and the Dutch Presidency for their decisive actions over the past week.
I shall be honest and admit that this was not what I expected. After seeing how rapidly the European Union took immediate action to send Javier Solana, Aleksander Kwaśniewski and President Adamkus to Ukraine three days after the rigged elections, I felt for the first time that accession to the European Union had been worthwhile, and that we are now part of a group able to stand up for a defenceless nation that is struggling to achieve independence and freedom.
I should like to express my heartfelt thanks for this. Up until now, such a rapid reaction could only be expected from the United States, or at least that was the case in our country, Poland. I am delighted that this time the European Union was able to act more swiftly and effectively. The European Union is now acting as mediator in the conflict in Ukraine. As an observer of the presidential elections in Ukraine, I should like to share an observation with this House. The crowd of people on Independence Square last Saturday numbered one million. This number included many Poles, as the Polish people remember the explosive emergence of the Solidarity movement in 1980, and realise that history is currently repeating in Ukraine.
There are a great many Georgians and Georgian flags on Independence Square, as Georgians are aware that recent events in their own country are being re-enacted in Ukraine. Yet there are also huge numbers of other young people who have travelled to Independence Square, Russian and Belarussian students, for example, The latter are anxious to experience in Kiev, albeit briefly, the freedom denied them in their own countries.
I am convinced that if the European Union supports the emerging democracy and civil society in Ukraine, it will in so doing ensure that democratic principles prevail in the whole of the East and in the whole of the area to the east of Ukraine and to the east of the European Union. This is not about the division of spheres of influence. It is about democratic principles, which, after all, we would all like to be enforced to the same degree throughout geographical Europe.
In view of the fact that I will travel to Kiev tomorrow as part of a delegation, I should like to call on this House to adopt the amendment I shall now read out, tabled by myself and Mr Geremek. This amendment calls on the Ukrainian Government to refrain from exerting any pressure on the media, and in particular on the public media, in order to ensure that the Ukrainian people are provided with objective and impartial information on the candidates and the situation in their country."@en1
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