Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-04-21-Speech-1-141"
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"en.20080421.17.1-141"2
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"Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for coming and presenting the latest position of the Commission on visa issues for the Ukraine and Belarus. A month ago, a delegation which comprised members of most of the mainstream opposition in Belarus visited Strasbourg at the invitation of the PPE-DE Group to discuss how the political situation is developing in that country, but also during that visit colleagues may have seen their appeals to this Parliament to support their efforts to reduce the visa fees they are currently paying, which are indeed prohibitive for the majority of Belarus citizens.
If we really want to encourage Belarus to pick a pro-European route in future – which we sincerely hope will be the case – the strongest arguments we have are those which the Belarus citizens can see with their own eyes. It is very difficult for them, in the regime in which they live, to have a real insight into what freedom and democracy, human rights and rule of law really mean. It is difficult to promote a civil society. It is difficult to show them that Europe is open and friendly and supports their move towards a full democracy. The best way we can do that is to allow those citizens access into Europe not at rates which will frighten or prohibit entry by most citizens.
Commissioner, you very rightly said that specific groups are excluded, and that is indeed children, and people with family contacts; it is people who are visiting the European Union for cultural or scientific or educational reasons, and I would encourage individual member countries to make use of that legal provision to let those people actually make use of those facilities. But it is very sad that Serbia and Russia are treated on better terms than Belarus’s citizens."@en1
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