Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-09-23-Speech-4-026"
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"en.20100923.2.4-026"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the Commissioner said that fundamental national interests prevent the development of desirable cooperation with certain countries. I accept that there may be such interests, but I believe that governments in favour of confrontation rather than cooperation have misinterpreted their fundamental national interests. This interpretation of the state's role clearly contradicts the interests of citizens living on both sides of the borders, who are certainly in favour of cooperation.
We can recall Jean Monnet’s frequently cited saying, that we build a union between people, not states. This is the direction we must follow. Moreover, the situation is further complicated by the fact that there are relatively large numbers of European citizens living beyond our borders, that is, beyond the external borders of the European Union, such as in Moldova. There is no doubt that cooperation between Romania and Moldova is vital and will also improve the relationship between the two countries.
Commissioner, I am not convinced that only these misinterpreted government and political factors prevent the perfect and harmonised use of this measure. I believe the administrative side should also be reviewed in depth and progress should be made in this area, as well. We are looking forward to this review by the Commission, and it will be particularly important to see the effectiveness of the programme. We are spending European citizens’ money, and we can only spend it with a clear conscience if programmes are effective and bring results. This is a very important issue. Where cross-border cooperation is concerned, the message we are sending to those living beyond our borders is not that we want to integrate them into an empire. In fact, our message is that we belong together in one way or another, and that the border between us is not some kind of impassable Great Wall of China, and that their lives can also benefit from mutual cooperation.
Evidently, we have never fixed the external borders of the European Union, which means that in theory the door is open. Obviously, it is not open to the entire world, but in this case we are talking only about specific cases, people and families interconnected by history. Borders shifted a great deal in the 20th century. There is a village on Slovakia’s border with Ukraine which is cut in half, because that is where the border was drawn by Stalin's infantry troops. With such a difficult historical heritage, it is crucial for this programme of the European Union to promote citizens’ interests effectively and deliver results."@en1
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