Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-07-09-Speech-3-336"
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"en.20080709.34.3-336"2
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"Mr President, I should like to make three comments before I turn to this debate, which has been extremely productive and exciting.
Finally, as you can see, the enlargement process has not broken down. It is continuing to make many demands on the candidate countries, and also on Member States, which have to explain this process to their citizens. Mr Rouček and Mrs De Keyser are absolutely right to say that a great deal of education is needed, with or without Magritte. However, it is true that, as you emphasised, citizens also need to be reassured.
It is precisely to make it possible to continue this process, the strategic import of which has been mentioned by some of you, and Mr Brok in particular, that the Treaty of Lisbon sets out to reform our institutions so that the new Member States – we must be clear about this – can be welcomed under the best conditions, without calling into question the European Union’s capacity for action.
First, on behalf of the Council, I would like to welcome the South African delegation who are here with us, and to tell them that we shall be seeing their country’s leaders very soon, as that will be the first European Union summit that will take place in France, at the end of July.
Secondly, I should like to join Mr Rehn in expressing great sympathy for the German tourists who, according to a dispatch, have been kidnapped by Kurdish rebels in Turkey. We in the Council very much hope that, if this is confirmed, these people will be found safe and sound as quickly as possible, and we would stress that our thoughts are with them.
Thirdly, I want to thank Mr Duff for his knowledge of French politics, and of the positions I personally hold. I shall, of course, be happy to talk to him in greater depth over a coffee, but unfortunately my duties today do not allow me to comment on them now.
To move on to our debate, enlargement is definitely part of the story of European development, and to date we have always ensured that enlargement and strengthening of the Union go hand in hand. It is important that this should continue, as Mr Brok emphasised. All debates are helpful in making our citizens aware of the issues involved in enlargement, and so we pay particular attention to the European Parliament’s debates and positions on this topic.
Following on from what many Members have said, I wish to emphasise the stabilising role of enlargement. This is obvious in the case of the Balkans. The rapid progress made by Croatia, which the French Presidency wishes to expedite further if all the Member States agree, shows that countries that experienced conflict in the 1990s have a genuine prospect of accession. This is an important message for Serbia in particular, given that it has just acquired a government that also aspires to strengthening its links with the European Union.
The same is equally true of Turkey, and in this context I should like to remind you that the current status of the negotiations is linked not to the position of one or other of the EU Member States, but to Turkey itself, and the rate of reform there. Above all, it is linked to Turkey’s fulfilment of its obligations to all the EU Member States and, in particular, with fulfilment of the Ankara Protocol.
The policy of enlargement does not mean that we are neglecting the European Union’s other neighbours. The Council is currently discussing how we can enable Ukraine to reach a new stage in its relations with the European Union in the forthcoming EU-Ukraine summit, which will be held in Evian on 9 September. We also wish to advance relations between the EU and Moldova, a country in which the Council has already invested a great deal.
As the Council Presidency, we also support the regional processes that have been described. I myself attended the conference that launched the synergy on the Black Sea, and the summit of the Baltic countries. And of course I cannot fail to mention the forthcoming summit on the Barcelona Process and the Mediterranean Union, which will take place in Paris on 13 July."@en1
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