Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-166"
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"en.20051025.20.2-166"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is now one year since the vote on the Moscovici report on progress by Romania and Bulgaria towards accession.
We said ‘yes’ but with reservations, invoking the safeguard clause stipulated in the Treaty which allowed for a one-year deferment if there were delays or unsatisfactory results in achieving the Community
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I have followed the Romanian situation more closely as a member of the interparliamentary delegation, and I believe that, today, a cautious approach may help us to gain a better awareness of the situation in that country, where the educational system is still inadequate, corruption is still widespread, environmental, energy and economic policies still require strengthening, there is still no real answer to discrimination against minorities, and the average income of the population is too low.
The question of international adoption is also still unresolved and, after the moratorium and approval of the new law, it has now been blocked, with unfortunate and extremely damaging consequences for the children, those with the least protection, who should be the main beneficiaries of what we all refer to as ‘human rights’. The victims are the children who got to know their families but who today are unable to embrace them and live with them. The European Parliament must keep this problem under close scrutiny and ask Romania to comply with its institutional promises.
Then there are the areas of justice and border controls in relation to prostitution, which needs to be contained, and we must avoid the arrival of under-age girls in neighbouring countries, exploited by local organisations.
Enlargement is a process we cannot halt, but it cannot and must not merely be an economic process: it is also a cultural and democratic phenomenon to ensure peace. That is why I agree with the prudent comments of the Commission on the definition of accession for Romania and Bulgaria. The months remaining before the accession of these two countries to the Union will give them the chance of joining Europe without being at the bottom of the class, and will allow us to have the necessary and prudential assurances that accession will occur with full consciousness and on an equal footing.
Naturally, this is our ambition, in order to achieve the dream shared by Romano Prodi with the citizens of Europe when, as President of the Commission, he strongly supported enlargement and expressed the wish for a united Europe able to offer a robust political project, to restore confidence to those looking nervously at the major changes taking place in our time, and thus enable us to be the architects of an international action with a human face. That, in my view, is the Europe to which we all aspire."@en1
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