Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-267"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20051026.18.3-267"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
".
Let me take this opportunity to place on record my respect and admiration for the work that the honourable Member has taken forward over a number of years for communities such as the Kurdish community in London. In response to his generous tribute to my role in the negotiations and the assertion that I would never forget it, I think I was in some danger of forgetting my own name by the end of 30 hours of serial and continuing negotiations! But I am delighted to say that, notwithstanding the lack of sleep and the considerable effort on all sides, we managed to reach what I think was a constructive way forward which reflected the long historical association between Turkey and Europe, the prospect of European membership having been held out to Turkey for 42 years. It was a genuinely historic moment in Luxembourg and one from which I think many of the Members of the European Parliament can take real pride.
However, the emphasis that I place on that moment in history, as I hope I reflected in my initial answer, is that it marks the next step of a journey that Turkey is on. In many ways, the destination is important but so too is the journey that Turkey is taking to reach that destination. In that regard, I believe that those of us who have long argued for Turkish accession to the European Union have the best interests of those who have, in the past, been fearful of their human and civil rights within Turkey at heart, because the very process of accession and the rigour which I sought to reflect in my earlier reply in many ways represent one of the best guarantees that can be afforded to such communities that the progress we all wish to see as Turkey makes that journey over the decade or so ahead will actually be made, and that there will be a transparent means by which the scale and pace of that progress can be judged, not just by the communities within Turkey but also by the wider international community within the European Union."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples