Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-16-Speech-3-059"
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"en.20080116.2.3-059"2
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"Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, I, too, am happy that Slovenia is taking over the Presidency of the Council. I was this Parliament’s general rapporteur for the enlargement round of the 12 countries and now seeing a country from this line-up take over the Presidency for the first time personally gives me great pleasure.
Slovenia is also the most successful of the new Member States, as a member of both the Schengen area and the euro area, and has proved that these new countries get on very well in Europe. And it must be said that small countries are often the most successful as regards the Presidency of the Council because they get fully involved in this business. I therefore wish you every success with it.
You have a multifaceted array of tasks ahead of you. You have to see through and deliver ratification of the crucial Lisbon Treaty and you must already be preparing to implement this Treaty, which is at least as important. You have a difficult problem ahead of you with Kosovo, and you have an exceptional opportunity to sort this out for us because you know this region very well. However, this also shows that the European Union is often pushed on foreign policy issues so that we are played off against the Americans and Russians.
When I see that at the same time as we are discussing strategies for Central Asia, and Gazprom is concluding gas contracts with Kazakhstan, then I have to say that we are not really taking strategic action on issues that are crucial for our future and I think that perhaps something needs to be improved here.
Please allow me one final comment. I too, coming as I do from North Rhine-Westphalia, would be grateful to the President of the Commission if he were able to provide clarification on the subject of Nokia. Relocations may, of course, take place. To put it clearly, Germany, more than almost any other country, gains extensive benefits from the European internal market or an enlarged European internal market, but it is very difficult to make this clear to those concerned if the loss of their jobs was facilitated with European funds or if unlawful national subsidies were used for this. We therefore request clarification on this because if these rumours were to be repeated, great harm would be done to the European concept."@en1
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