Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-265"
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"en.20060315.21.3-265"2
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".
Mr President, I should like to begin by imparting to you some breaking news: the decisions of late 2005 have created a solid political framework for our enlargement policy for 2006 to 2010, and in some cases even further. For instance, the accession negotiations with Turkey are likely to take 10 to 15 years. I do not expect anyone seriously to question our existing commitments in South-East Europe because it is really a matter of our own security and stability that we can enhance peace, democracy and increase prosperity in that very sensitive area.
Finally, referring to what Mr Eurlings said about deepening and widening, I belong to the camp that thinks that the deepening of political integration is indispensable in order to make the European Union more effective and democratic. We must make the Union function better, and that was and is the purpose of the Constitutional Treaty. Therefore, we need a constitutional debate and, in time – sooner rather than later – we need to decide on how we reform our structures so that they are more effective and democratic and so that the European Union can have more clout in external relations, in Common Foreign and Security Policy and in preserving the security of its own citizens against international crime and terrorism.
That must be done in the near future, not in the distant future – not in 10 to 15 years, for instance, when Turkey might be able to join – for the sake of Europe, and we need it already for the European Union of 25 or 27 Member States. Therefore, rather than talk about absorption capacity, I would prefer to talk about the functioning capacity of the current European Union to ensure that we serve our citizens better in terms of both policies and institutions.
We now have a consolidated and sufficiently demanding enlargement agenda. The enlargement train is no bullet train, no TGV, no Eurostar; it is a normal train or, in some cases, even a local train, but, most importantly, this train is moving, it is in the process and is thereby transforming the countries that are in the immediate neighbourhood of the European Union.
Concerning the borders of Europe, the Commission works on the basis of Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union, which states that any European country that respects and applies the European values of democracy, human rights, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms may apply for membership of the Union. That does not mean that every European country must apply or that the EU must accept every country, but at the same time it means that it is not sensible to close the door forever by drawing a line across the map to define Europe once and for all, which would seriously damage our possibilities of having a beneficial influence and strategic leverage in our immediate neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, although no final borders of the Union have yet been determined, the EU is developing other forms of partnership and cooperation with our neighbouring countries, for instance in the form of the European Neighbourhood Policy, which can be further developed and upgraded.
A few comments and points have been made concerning absorption capacity. I would like to give a very brief historical overview. That concept was first explicitly mentioned in Copenhagen in 1993 when the European Council stated that the Union’s capacity to absorb new members, while maintaining the momentum of European integration, is also an important consideration in the general interests of both the Union and the candidate countries. That concept and its consequences have been examined regularly by the Commission.
In its Agenda 2000 – and I am happy to refer to that because I was a member of the Steering Group for Agenda 2000, which was adopted in 1997 – the Commission examined the impact of the accession of central and eastern European countries from two angles: its impact on EU policies such as agriculture or regional policy, and its budgetary consequences. As a result, this work led to the setting of critical parameters in the negotiations that followed, in the decisions of March 1999 at the Berlin Summit and in 2003, when the countries of eastern and central Europe were allowed to join the European Union. This facilitated the accession of EU-10 and, by those means, we successfully combined our historic mission of reunifying the European continent and taking care of the practical considerations, which are also of concern to our citizens today.
Later on, we examined that concept during the accession negotiations, in some chapters in particular, such as that on the free movement of persons and the financial chapters, and more recently the Commission also examined that concept in our 2004 Issues Paper on questions arising from the Turkish accession perspective.
I would recommend this paper of October 2004 to all Members of the European Parliament. It is still worth reading and outlines very well the broad consequences of possible Turkish accession to the Union if, one day, Turkey meets all the conditions for accession.
Thus, the upsurge in capacity is an important concept, and it has also been referred to in the negotiating frameworks for Turkey and Croatia. I can assure you that we bear this in mind throughout the negotiations, and it is also a leading concept in our strategy document of last November. We base our work on that concept and it is a very important consideration."@en1
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