Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-05-07-Speech-3-077"
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"en.20080507.12.3-077"2
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"Madam President, this has been an important debate at an important and difficult moment. Before I respond to some of your ideas, questions and opinions, may I say that I also very much welcome the report of the EU-Georgia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, which agrees with much of our analysis in the Commission and shares common ground with our progress reports.
It is very clear that we must support Georgia but, as some of you have said, good friends also have to take good advice, and I think the first thing that we have to tell them is: dialogue is the only way forward. If Georgia is being provoked, it is essential that it does not fall into the trap of reacting aggressively.
As many of you have pointed out, it is more important than ever for Georgia to strengthen its democracy and hold free and fair elections, and we will see what happens on 21 May. But it is also clear that there is no question of the European Union standing idly by at this very difficult moment.
We will certainly continue to urge Russia to revoke its recent decision and indeed, as our Council President has said, we have just had the Troika meeting of the EU-Russia Permanent Partnership Council – I myself was present – where this question was tackled in a quite open way. Then of course there will be the June summit and we will use every opportunity to make this point very clear.
We will also continue to support Georgia in its efforts to grow stronger. I repeat that we will also support any initiative that promotes dialogue between all the parties.
I agree, as I said earlier, with proposals to revise the peace mechanisms, if an agreement can be reached on this with all partners: this is of course the difficulty, again. With regard to visa facilitation, we have begun talks in the Council. More and more Member States now see the urgency of visa facilitation and readmission. We do not yet have the unanimity that is absolutely necessary, but maybe this is now moving in the right direction.
With regards to refugees, we have already provided significant humanitarian assistance to the IDPs who had to leave Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This year we are additionally supporting the implementation of a new Georgian law on the reintegration of IDPs away from their miserable temporary shelters, which involves a EUR 2 million programme.
But of course we will continue to be active, because this is one of the things that we must constantly keep our eyes on.
To conclude, we will indeed do all we practically can to bring about a return to stability in Georgia and will of course also give unfailing support to Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity."@en1
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