Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-06-Speech-3-272"
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"en.20050706.26.3-272"2
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".
Mr President, it is with embarrassment, indeed with shame, that we commemorate the victims of the massacre at Srebrenica. Many of those who carried it out have not yet been arrested, but we too, as representatives of the people of Europe, cannot fail to be aware of our share in the blame for the tragic events in the Balkans, and to face up to the consequences, and it is not only the victims and their families who have the right to hear us acknowledge our guilt and express our regret. It is also for the sake of Europe’s future, for the sake of the region’s future, for the sake of Serbia’s future, that there must be an acknowledgement of one’s own guilt, an acknowledgement without which forgiveness and reconciliation will be impossible. Acknowledgement and sorrow are needed, not in order to humiliate Serbia, in order that the Serbs as a whole might be condemned, and not in order to excuse the misdeeds and crimes of other peoples, but we do expect them.
We must be clear in our minds about the fact that contemplation of the past helps to build a better future. It is now for Europe to give this region a clear vision of what the future can be like. History shows us how the countries of the Balkans were for too long at the mercy of the interests and schemes of the great European powers, as well as of Turkey, which you may or may not, depending on your point of view, regard as having been one of them. What I say now I say not only as rapporteur for Croatia, but also as one who is committed to the region as a whole: we have to give them a chance to put their own house in order, to show that they have learned their lessons from history, that they take human rights – and the rights of minorities in particular – seriously.
As Mr Alexander and Commissioner Rehn have described to the House the various processes by which it is intended that these countries should be brought closer to the European Union, I would like to make it abundantly clear that the object must be to give them the chance to accede to it as Member States. It may well be the case that other sentiments prevail today, and people fight shy of enlargement, but we, in Europe, must be clear in our own minds about the need to prepare ourselves for an enlargement along these lines. Nor must we lose sight of the fact that these countries are themselves under an obligation to do their homework and do their bit in making their accession possible.
Many of their young people, though, look to Europe as their ideal, and it is for their sake that, as Mrs Pack has just said, we must hold out to them the prospect of one day, when the time is ripe and they have overcome their own problems, being in a position to become Member States of the European Union. Whatever our criticisms of the way in which the European Union is developing, we have to concede that, for many people in the Balkans, the great hope is that they will one day belong to the European Union and be part of one single Europe, and we must give them the chance to do that."@en1
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