Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-13-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20080313.2.4-016"2
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"Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Budreikaitė on this excellent report. The document makes reference to the Eastern dimension of EU external relations and the need for a new assembly on the lines of EUROLAT or EUROMED – an assembly that could build on the historical experience of the new Member States in particular, including my own country, Poland.
I fully agree with the rapporteur on this. Europe needs a new vision of a broader sphere of influence extending through the Balkans and the Black Sea region to the southern Caucasus. EU policy with regard to these regions is outdated. The very name ‘European Neighbourhood Policy’ is inappropriate and insulting for countries like Ukraine, which is undoubtedly part of Europe. The name should be changed to ‘European Union Neighbourhood Policy’, as the former Ukrainian foreign minister, Borys Tarasiuk, rightly pointed out at the last meeting of the EU-Ukraine Cooperation Council.
The European Union must give more support to Ukraine and Georgia and draw them into its sphere of influence. Those countries need our commitment even more than the countries of Central Europe did before the 2004 enlargement. They need an individual approach on the part of the European Union, not a general neighbourhood policy that de facto treats Ukraine in the same way as countries that historically do not belong to Europe. Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus too, are poorer, economically weaker and in greater political difficulty than the countries that joined the Union after 2004.
Recent years have seen a significant strengthening of Russia’s position in the region. Russia’s readiness to use its energy reserves for political blackmail deters the European Union from opposing the Kremlin’s shameful practices, which have nothing in common with democracy. In Georgia and Ukraine, Moscow is attempting to reverse the democratic transition. The European Union Neighbourhood Policy, as we ought to call it, must offer immediate political and economic aid to our nearest neighbours. Poland already has projects waiting and ready to go, such as the Bielsat independent television project for Belarus."@en1
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