Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-01-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20041201.10.3-053"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following on from Mr Battilocchio’s evocation of the ‘rose revolution’ in Georgia a year ago, let me say that visitors to Tbilisi will find in the cabinet chamber, on the streets and in the President’s office, the European flag hanging alongside its Georgian counterpart, as if the country were a Member State of the European Union, and, if you stand on Freedom Square in Kiev, you will see there the Georgian flag and the European flag, for all these countries aspire to make their way to Europe. Not all of our neighbours, though, can accede to the European Union. As early as when we take our decision in December, we will have to consider the European Union’s capacity for accepting new members, and so we need to come to some clearer conclusions about our European neighbourhood policy, and that very soon. In her hearing before the committee, the Commissioner was pretty clear about how that was one of her priorities. If that is the case, though, if there is the expectation of coming to Europe, and if we are ready for it, then our response over the last few weeks was inadequate.
That the High Representative was willing to go to Kiev only when this House insisted on it was a mistake on his part. He should have been there before the elections, showing that Europe has an interest in fair elections, and if it is indeed the case – as our fellow-Members tell us – that the Commission had to be asked whether it might not send a larger delegation, whether it was not willing to be more involved in these elections, then that too revealed an oversight, and one that is now a source of great pain to us. Whilst we understand that massive staffs, lots of money and large numbers of personnel are going into the preparations for the Palestinian elections on 9 January, we could have shown the same commitment to one of our immediate neighbours, with its 50 million inhabitants, which wants to be part of Europe.
I therefore think that our European neighbourhood policy, with the report that we will be starting to consider in a few weeks’ time, needs to have new life breathed into it. Participation in the internal market, participation in European programmes – we need to be sending out signals now about the many things we can offer.
This is not about thinking in terms of spheres of influence, nor is it anti-Russian, for a democratic Ukraine too will need to maintain good relations with Russia, and we Europeans need to support it in this."@en1
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