Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-28-Speech-3-094"
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"en.20070328.14.3-094"2
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".
Madam President, in 1912, Kosovo, a region with a 90% Albanian population, was annexed to Serbia without a referendum. It had a chequered fate, until, at the end of the 1980s, the war criminal Slobodan Milošević revoked Kosovo’s autonomy in the Yugoslav Constitution. A brutal apartheid regime was installed: the Albanians were forbidden to attend kindergartens, schools and universities and to practise a profession. They were even forbidden to visit public swimming baths. The system was inconceivably cruel, something I saw at first hand.
There then followed the mass expulsion of 1998, which was only stopped following intervention by NATO, by which time the majority of the population had already been driven out of the country. The United Nations established an administration, and now we are on the brink of a new beginning. What could the future look like? If we do our duty, if we resolve the status issue quickly, consensually and in unison, and if the EU takes responsibility for an international presence in Kosovo, the country could become a multi-ethnic democracy with the most extensive minority rights in the world within a short space of time. After all, the Ahtisaari report contains the most extensive minority arrangement in the world, presenting economic prospects, certainly, and also the prospect of EU membership.
I agree with Mrs Mann that the country has seen decades of neglect. Investment is needed for the benefit of a young, unemployed population, and this will only be provided once the status issue has been resolved, once legal certainty exists – which is why we have to concentrate on justice and home affairs – and once the country is at peace and has good neighbourly relations with Serbia.
I can only make a plea to Serbian politicians: General de Gaulle once spoke of the
the peace of the brave. The Serbians and the Albanians would then enjoy a good, common, European future as neighbouring European peoples ..."@en1
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"paix des braves"1
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