Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-14-Speech-3-284"
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"en.20071114.33.3-284"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regard the European Neighbourhood Policy, the intensification of which we are discussing today, as a key strategic policy, and I would like to record my sincere thanks to the two rapporteurs for their report, a truly important document which will also serve to fill our sails for the next leg of the ENP voyage.
The neighbourhood policy, then, is working, but we must go further, of course, in our efforts to make it even better, even more effective and even more comprehensive. Last December the Commission published recommendations on ways of strengthening the ENP, which our President-in-Office of the Council has already presented. I believe we have taken some very important steps. For example, our eastern partners lacked a regional dimension, but now we have launched this Black Sea Synergy programme as a tailor-made process for the East. It gives the East what the South has long possessed in the form of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, and the first meeting in the Black Sea Synergy framework will take place in 2008.
We have also made progress towards opening Community programmes and agencies to our neighbours. This year we shall also be awarding the first allocations from the new Governance Facility, through which we are demonstrating that we can and will offer more to those partners that display genuine reforming zeal.
In addition, before the year is out we shall have established the Neighbourhood Investment Facility. Its purpose is to help mobilise funds for the neighbourhood policy over and above our normal budget, primarily to make it possible to fund the large-scale projects in areas such as energy and transport.
I do believe we can claim some successes, but we now need your continued support and that of the Member States to enable us to make further improvements and take further steps. I am thinking mainly of closer economic integration and of more intensive free trade with our partners. Their integration into the EU internal market is, of course, a very powerful reform lever. For this reason we must also gradually open our market, even to what we call sensitive agricultural goods and services, in which our partners have certain competitive advantages. This means that we must also ask ourselves whether we are prepared to do that.
The second thing I am thinking of is further visa-facilitation measures, which are urgently required to facilitate contacts between people in different countries. These measures can often be taken within the existing rules, provided there is enough political will to use the available scope, and we must continue to develop the political dimension of the neighbourhood policy. This relates to the frozen conflicts we see in the partner countries on our eastern borders, conflicts that seriously impede our neighbours’ progress towards reform and, in some cases, threaten our own security.
For this reason the neighbourhood policy must help to create the right climate for the resolution of conflicts such as the one in the southern Caucasus.
In the Mediterranean region, I shall naturally continue to press for progress in the Middle East, especially in the Quartet framework, and I very much hope that the meeting in Annapolis and the subsequent donors’ conference in Paris will materialise so that further genuine progress can be made in the Middle East.
We are also prepared to help the parties to the conflict in the Western Sahara in their quest for a long-term solution. In the coming period our neighbourhood policy will be sharply focused on practical implementation. We must all pull together in order to maintain and intensify the dynamics of reform that have developed among our partners.
Next month the Commission will adopt another communication on the neighbourhood policy, in which we shall outline the steps which the EU needs to take in order to deliver further tangible results in 2008, in other words our own contribution. In April we shall then present the country-by-country progress reports, in which we shall analyse where our neighbours can further improve the implementation of the action plans.
At the beginning of December some fundamental questions will have to be asked, such as whether the Commission is fully aware of the various capacities and goals of individual neighbouring countries. As I have said, however, we can make a good deal of progress on the basis of this differentiated approach.
We want to use this neighbourhood policy, of course, to project our stability and to encourage reforms. In view of the international challenges confronting Europe, the success of this policy is also vital not only to our prosperity but also to the prosperity, stability and security of both ourselves and our neighbours. That is the basic idea.
It seems to me that importance also attaches to the concept of ownership and the local potential for putting the ownership principle into practice, as well as to even greater involvement of civil society, an area in which we could still do far more.
I must not omit to add a few words on the events in Georgia, which we have been discussing together. I merely want to add that we are very concerned about the latest developments in Georgia. We regret the excessive use of force on the part of the Georgian state security forces in breaking up demonstrations and closing down independent television stations.
I believe we need an independent inquiry into these incidents. We also remain concerned about the continuing state of emergency and the restrictions on the freedom of the media, for curtailing constitutional rights and closing down media operators are draconian measures which are inconsistent with those democratic values that underlie our bilateral relations with Georgia and that Georgia has pledged itself to uphold. We therefore expect these measures to be lifted without delay.
I welcome, on the other hand, the decision taken by President Saakashvili to hold presidential elections and a referendum on the date for parliamentary elections, thereby meeting the main demands of the opposition. I hope this will help to ease tension, and I appeal to all involved to keep political disputes within the bounds of the normal democratic process and to return from the streets to the negotiating table. We need the right conditions for a fair and transparent electoral process.
I just wanted to add that. Do forgive me for taking longer than usual, but since I bear particular responsibility on the basis of the precept that politics is about people, you will understand that these matters are particularly close to my heart.
I also thank you for the key elements that were developed in the report. It is a differentiated policy, a policy that must have a coherent political framework. It is a policy which is also designed to generate synergy within a regional structure – Black Sea Synergy in one area and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in the other. It is a policy based on recognition of the need to support particular sectors. Implementing and further intensifying the neighbourhood policy is thus an absolute priority. I am therefore grateful for the support of Parliament, which is essential.
The results of the major European Neighbourhood Policy Conference on 3 September also show that our partners and our Member States are now fully in agreement with this prioritisation. The conference was a real success, because it brought all of our ENP partners and all the Member States together for the first time, along with representatives of the various authorities and of civil society. A clear consensus emerged on the substantive priorities of the neighbourhood policy, from economic integration to greater mobility, and from energy policy to political cooperation.
Parliament can play an especially prominent and important role in the realm of political cooperation, and of course you are also a catalyst for the development of democracy, for human rights and for reforms leading towards the establishment of the rule of law, to which we naturally attach the utmost importance here, and which serve as a compass of this neighbourhood policy. The neighbourhood policy is already yielding definite results too. One need only consider how much we have intensified our cooperation with Ukraine in the ENP framework since the Orange Revolution. The fact that Ukraine has now held free and fair elections for the second time undoubtedly constitutes a success. I hope that the political decision-makers in Kiev will now maintain the momentum of recent weeks.
We shall continue to work with you on the implementation of major reforms too, with the aid of the substantial ENP Action Plan. Negotiations are progressing on an enhanced agreement, which, as you are aware, is intended to bring Ukraine as close as possible to the European Union.
We shall also continue, of course, to support Ukraine’s accession to the WTO so that we can establish a comprehensive free-trade area, and we have already – as you know – concluded a visa-facilitation agreement with Ukraine and hope that the same can be done soon with the Republic of Moldova, each of these agreements being accompanied by an agreement on readmission.
Morocco is another enthusiastic beneficiary of this neighbourhood policy, and is using it astutely as an engine of modernisation, which is precisely what we wanted to happen. We have very clearly commended Morocco’s progress on the basis of its detailed internal reform programme, and the new aviation agreement and Morocco’s close energy cooperation with the EU, for example, are good models of fruitful cooperation.
Only last week I was in Rabat for talks, at which I also initiated further progress on the joint reflection process we began in July with a view to meeting Morocco’s request for advanced status in the ENP framework. I am confident that in the second half of next year we shall be able to present appropriate proposals on a new and advanced form of association."@en1
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