Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-15-Speech-3-206"
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"en.20041215.7.3-206"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let it be clear that this is not a debate between those in favour of Romania’s accession to the European Union and those who oppose it. My group does not have any fundamental objections to Romania’s membership either, not even on 1 January 2007.
This is a debate, however, between those who think that, except for a few loose ends, Romania is ready, and those, myself included, who think that it is not, and see that as a reason why we cannot give the go-ahead right now. I am, in all honesty, surprised at the position of some groups. The very same Members of this House who rightly attached great importance to human rights during the vote and discussions about Turkey, a country that is on the very threshold of negotiations, are, in the case of Romania, a country that is completing them, prepared to overlook just about anything where the same Copenhagen criteria are concerned. There are yet other Members in this House whose view of reality has, quite honestly, been somewhat clouded by the fact that members of their parties are probably involved in reprehensible affairs, or because they hope that, after the recent elections in Romania, everything will be very different overnight. Hope for improvement is fine, but we should not be naive. The problems in Romania are immense, so much so that there is no doubt in my mind that we cannot give them the green light.
I will give you two examples. Over the past few years, there has been no improvement in the situation of journalists and the media in Romania; indeed, it has changed for the worse. The number of attacks on critical journalists has increased and the criticism levelled at them was often connected to cases of corruption. All NGOs, all the organisations that we always praise so highly – Transparency International, the Open Society Institute, the OECD – all have one message: corruption is still rife in Romania and should not be underestimated. Of course, everyone here will state that corruption is to be combated, but how seriously can we take a party which has a majority in the Romanian parliament and a member of which – also a former minister – had to step down a few years ago on account of corruption, and is now vice-chairman of that same party and a candidate for the senate?
In my view, this, together with Amnesty International’s reports about the truly abominable treatment of psychiatric patients, can only lead to one conclusion, namely that Romania should wait for a little longer. That is why I should like to ask the Commission why it should not draft a separate report next spring, for example, on the aspects which everyone, including the rapporteur, worry about, namely freedom of the press, corruption, independence of the judiciary? The Commission does compile a report on possible problems concerning competition, but refuses to devote a fresh report to human rights problems. Why should state support be a stumbling block and human rights not?
To those who say – and that is also a comment with regard to the Commission and the presidency – that we still have the suspension clause at our disposal, which enables us to delay Romania’s accession by one year, I should like to state clearly that this suspension clause can only be invoked if there is a unanimous vote in favour of it. In other words, if one country in the Council refuses to cooperate, then it will not happen. What about qualified majority? Regrettably, that can only be applied to a number of specific areas, and freedom of the press is not one of them.
In my view, Parliament should not relinquish its power by giving the go-ahead now and, logically, doing the same thing in March. Parliament must take itself seriously. I would like to quote from a major Dutch newspaper: 'With friendliness that lacks honesty, Europe may become big, but it is growth without substance, greatness without inner strength’. The strength of the European Union is to be found in principles that apply universally, including to political allies."@en1
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