Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-22-Speech-2-127-000"
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"en.20120522.5.2-127-000"2
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"Mr President, the honourable Members and yourself are all right. You are all right. The situation that we are facing is very complex.
But I also care about her as a politician and my motto here is that, whatever the political responsibility – and there were many she had to deal with when she was Prime Minister – whenever we are talking about political responsibility, the right arena is not a court or prison but an open arena and elections. Whenever there is the possibility of criminal responsibility, or talk of criminal responsibility, beyond any doubt, all preconditions need to be in place for the rule of law to deliver and for there to be a fair trial.
I have a fifth and last remark. Yulia Tymoshenko herself has asked that her case should not be used as an excuse to slow the association process. We respect that. At the same time, we demand that Ukraine show that it respects the spirit of our new agreement before we can confidently open the way to allow its entry into force.
Let me remind you of the bigger picture. We are talking about the transformation and transition of a country of 50 million people, we are talking about the transformation of eastern Europe and we are talking about a country, a region, where, not a long time ago – and we all here remember this – a totalitarian regime reigned, the Soviet totalitarian regime to be more precise.
This is not the first region where the European Union has tried to transform and expand the values of democracy and legality. There are others – central Europe, the western Balkans – where, through the policy of enlargement and by using those countries’ vision of sooner or later joining the European Union, this organisation has been successful.
I have no illusions about Ukraine and that part of Europe. I have a vision that sooner or later, we will be able to be bold with regard to this region and this country and that we will help in the transformation there. Now, in that transformation, there has been a discussion about geopolitics being on one side and values on the other side. I do not see a contradiction. I think we need to be aware of geopolitics, but we should not play geopolitics. I think we should do everything possible to help Ukraine to transform and that this is in line with the legitimate aspirations of the people. We should be flexible, innovative and creative. We should not see the situation as being black and white.
At the same time, there is one thing on which we should never compromise. We should never compromise on our values and our principles because, if we do and if we make these compromises, sooner or later, we will face more than challenges – problems – in our own neighbourhood, if not within the European Union.
That was my first point. My second point concerns boycotting the football championship. In the Commission and the Council, we have never used the word ‘boycott’. Let me therefore reiterate the position on Euro 2012. As matters now stand, President Barroso has no intention of travelling to the Ukraine or of attending Euro 2012 events in Ukraine. This position is shared by the College, bearing in mind that Commissioners would have been attending in a personal rather than a professional capacity. It is not a boycott and we hope that Euro 2012 will be a great success. This does not affect the matches in Poland, of course. And yes, the Commission is in favour of the fair play which is so closely associated with sport also being associated with politics.
Turning now to the important question about the elections – free and fair elections. The Member States are agreed on the importance of sending as many European Union election observers as possible as part of the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission. The European Union delegation in Kiev has already started coordinating actions with the European Union Heads of Missions with a view to supporting training of observers or financing exit polls, which played an essential role in the evaluation of previous elections, particularly those in 2004. A European Union delegation has also observed all the relevant meetings of the Central Election Commission. Also in the pipeline are projects in support of media monitoring, analysis of marketing of parties and so on with the Council of Europe – all the projects to reach out to vulnerable voters. That was my third point.
My fourth point – to a more interested group of parliamentarians – is that, for my part, I care about former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko as a person and I care about her as a politician.
As a person, together with you, I will do my best firstly to ensure that she has access to medical care she feels comfortable with and that treatment begins to address the cause of her illness. Next, I will do everything possible, together with you, to ensure that we have access to her and that she has access to her family and to her lawyers. I will also make sure, together with you, that the Court of Cassation will offer a different picture of justice and the rule of law in Ukraine."@en1
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