Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-05-Speech-3-404"
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"en.20060705.20.3-404"2
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"Mr President, over recent years, I have been a very frequent visitor to the countries of the Western Balkans, and whenever I have been there, the main thing that people wanted to talk about was the restrictive visa policy of the EU Member States.
This is a region in which generations are growing up with their only experience of Western Europe being derived from time spent there as refugees or from the television, neither of which are really suitable ways of familiarising oneself with good examples of how democratic societies based on the rule of law work in practice. Experience of such things is out of the reach of most people in South-Eastern Europe or involves considerable obstacles, and that is where there must be changes; on that point I am in full agreement with my fellow Members.
We know, too, Commissioner Frattini, that you and your fellow Commissioner Mr Rehn are strongly supportive of this process, but it is proving tough going and several Member States are standing in the way. It is in the best interests of the EU of 25 that we should act once and for all, for any further delay in giving people the freedom to travel is ammunition to the nationalist, anti-European and, indeed, anti-democratic groupings in these countries. Any and every delay isolates those people who have pinned their hopes on European integration, and, as my fellow Members have already said, it hinders the economic development that is so urgently needed.
Although Austria had put the Western Balkans at the top of its list of priorities, no new decisions were taken about them; it is for that reason that we request the Finnish Presidency of the Council, as a matter of urgency, to take up this cause, to appeal to its colleagues in office to be more open in dealing with this matter, and not to be taken in by the spurious argument according to which a restrictive visa policy prevents crime, be it organised or of any other kind, for the opposite is more likely to be the case.
I have a final request to make of you, that you tell the Member States to treat applicants for visas in their external delegations with the same dignity and respect as they themselves would expect when they are overseas."@en1
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