Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-12-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20050112.3.3-025"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me just start with a brief comment. I see the statute as too important an issue to be a plaything for demagogues, and so I would ask you to ignore the rabble-rousing utterances that have been made and go ahead with what you plan to do with all your strength and in earnest, addressing this issue and finding a solution to it.
Your speech, Mr President-in-Office, was a very good one, and I would like to congratulate you on getting the right balance between the economy and society and particularly on giving priority to employment and growth. If I may be frank, that is an example to many, and not just to Christian Democrat Heads of Government.
I would, though, also like to endorse what you said about the foreign policy aspects. Two countries in our vicinity – Ukraine and Palestine – have held important elections in recent weeks. In both instances, the European Union played a very active part in bringing about change through democratic, open and transparent elections, and Europe must, as you said, hang on in there. We must not disappoint the people whom we have, to some degree, motivated to summon up the courage to bring about changes, and whom we have helped to do so in a transparent manner.
Do not let yourself be discouraged, Mr President-in-Office, for you are quite right to say that the development we are promoting and supporting in Ukraine is not a development in opposition to Russia, but we must nevertheless try to work together with Russia towards finding solutions. Ukraine must not become the ball in a game of power politics played by the European Union and Russia. Russia must of course acknowledge that there have been changes that it may find disagreeable, but which the people themselves have chosen. Were these changes now to be pursued to some degree in opposition to Russia, it would not be in Ukraine’s interests, for it is too varied and too diversified, and we know that it is those parts that are to some extent aligned with Russia that are Ukraine’s economic powerhouses.
Similarly, in Palestine, we need to remain involved and to continue giving political moral and financial support, as we have done for years, whilst always taking a critical line when it could not be clearly shown where the money was flowing. We have brought about many changes and introduced a degree of transparency, including in the way Palestine is administered. That is what we have achieved, and we will continue to do so if we get stuck in and, as has been said, do not limit ourselves to supplying funds but also help the Palestinian people to gain a state of their own. The only way to guarantee security in the Middle East is for there to be both an Israel that is secure within its own borders and also a new Palestinian state. Even if foreign policy is not one of your presidency’s priorities from the word go, we cannot desert the people whom we have helped to bring about change; it is also in our own interest, in the interests of stability and our own continent, that we should help them towards the real political goal."@en1
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