Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-06-Speech-3-053"
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"en.20060906.5.3-053"2
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"Mr President, it is a good omen that it should be today that we adopt the agreement with Albania, since it was on this day that Franz Josef Strauß was born. It was he who, by travelling there as a private citizen, was the first Western politician to break through Albania’s isolation. Anyone who remembers those days and the things then to be seen in Albania, and who has since revisited that country on many occasions will know what a tremendous journey Albania can look back on.
No other country in Europe has, in modern times, been so oppressed and isolated and endured such persecution, whether for the sake of religion or of intellectual freedom, even though its people played a vital part in the cultural history of medieval Europe, including among their own number Skanderbeg, the last great European to fight for freedom from the Ottomans, and also – with the League of Prizren – in that of the 19th and 20th centuries, only to be betrayed by Europe at the Congress of Berlin – in other words, a country that was among the first victims not only of Fascism but also of Communism, and which is only now beginning to return to its place at the European table.
So, then, no matter how justified our criticisms and irrespective of the need to reinforce democracy and the rule of law, we have to acknowledge that no European people in recent history has had such a tough time of it as it found its way to European structures, and that is why it needs all the solidarity we can offer. I am not talking here only about the state, but about the infrastructure as well; this is a country that needs massive support from us in building roads, in establishing cross-border links with Kosovo, and in connecting up to energy supplies.
Kosovo will, in the long term, become less one-sidedly dependent on Belgrade if it is able to cooperate and communicate appropriately across the borders with its Albanian and Montenegrin neighbours. Overcoming the isolation to which this country was brutally subject will be a substantial task for a generation, if not for more than one of them, and I can do no other than marvel at the courage with which the government under Sali Berisha has got to grips with it. I am quite sure that Prime Minister Berisha has learned much from the mistakes that were made in the past, and that his approach to things is a quite different one.
However necessary criticism might be, we are perfectly justified in taking a somewhat optimistic view of things and giving this country the backwind that it deserves on the grounds not only of its tragic history, but also of its potential, which, economically speaking, is considerable, for it is a young country with a young population, speaking many languages and with a new outlook, who are determined to accept a challenge sadly denied to their ancestors."@en1
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