Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-14-Speech-3-325"
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"en.20071114.33.3-325"2
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"Mr President, I will also try to be as brief as I can. I will just say that I think it was a very fruitful debate and I wish again to thank the two rapporteurs. It was really clear that a great number of Members wanted to speak in this very important discussion.
I shall make just a few points in response to some questions. Firstly, it is true that Mauritania is now a partner country in the Euromed process, but it is not a Neighbourhood Policy country. I just wanted to make this clarification; the funds for Mauritania will still come under the ACP heading.
On my second point, I wish to be very clear. There was criticism from some Members that human rights, democracy and the rule of law were not our major objectives. On the contrary. If you look at any of the action plans, one of the major parts is always a basis for developing as much as possible human rights, democracy and the rule of law. But, of course, it takes time and we are working particularly with those countries on the question of the judiciary and the justice system, which is, of course, a basis for making differences on the ground.
Then one of the Members of the Independence/Democracy Group said that he did not want to have more migration. I want to tell him that visa facilitation always goes hand-in-hand with readmission agreements, so we are trying to combat illegal immigration, but we also want to try to facilitate people-to-people contact and sometimes apply some ideas for legal immigration, which is also necessary for many of our countries because of the ageing population.
Fourthly, on frozen conflicts, of course the Neighbourhood Policy alone cannot solve all frozen conflicts. For that, we also have special representatives of Mr Solana, the Secretary-General of the Council. But with the Neighbourhood Policy we are trying to create the best enabling environment for that. And that is highly important: in Israel and Palestine, when we speak about the Maghreb and when we speak about the countries of Eastern Europe.
There was another question with regard to Israel’s special status. I can tell you, as I told the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, when we met her in Lisbon, that we have a special reflection group. The reflection group is working. The ideas on the table are very ambitious, particularly from the Israeli side. But, we have to see that it fits into the overall coherent framework approach of the Neighbourhood Policy. But within that we can certainly do a lot. And this is what we are reflecting on and discussing at the moment. I imagine that, next year, under the next Association Council, we will hopefully come up with proposals for that. So we have not forgotten it; we are working on it.
A last word on Georgia: many colleagues who have spoken on Georgia, including my friend Lydie Polfer, have said that the situation is very complex. We all know that, on the one hand, there are great tensions between the opposition and the government, but, on the other hand, there might be also other tendencies there. I therefore think it is highly important that President Saakashvili has called for presidential elections. He has said that he will consult the population on the date for parliamentary elections. And I do hope that the reform aspect that we have really tried to promote will go on in the future, otherwise confidence in the Georgian Government will be very much damaged if the current crisis cannot be solved in a democratic way. But, of course, we will try to do everything to support Georgia.
My last point is on financing. Many have said that we need more funds. But you should know that the European Investment Fund or Investment Facility that is always mentioned is an opportunity to give more funds to those countries that need them with regard to infrastructure projects, energy, transport and so on. We have therefore said that what we have is maybe not sufficient. Therefore, let us have more."@en1
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