Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-01-Speech-3-057"
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"en.19991201.7.3-057"2
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"Madam President, Members of the European Parliament, the last month of the Finnish presidential term began today. During the past five months I have addressed Parliament on several occasions and have been able to meet you in various contexts. For me, the debates have been a rewarding and thought-provoking experience.
We in Finland have an old saying that a job well conceived is a job half done. In our report we are trying to prepare the ground for Portugal to be able to launch the IGC process as quickly as possible, perhaps even by February 2000, and for the conference to be able to be closed at the end of the same year. However, the Intergovernmental Conference is not the only route towards enhancing and reforming the work of the Union. I would like to remind everyone that reforms can also be made without amending the Treaties. During the autumn, we had discussions among the Member States and also partly put into effect the recommendations contained in the
report to improve the functional capabilities of the Council.
As the country to hold the presidency, we have also aspired to concrete action to promote transparency. On our own initiative we have, among other things, posted Council and working party agendas and timetables on the Internet. I am pleased to be able to tell you today that most of these reforms are now permanent. The General Affairs Council is to adopt the decision made on this issue on our initiative. Accordingly, in future, the Council will render public agendas of working groups, committees and Council sessions, with appropriate references to documents in respect of legislation. We also await with interest the Commission’s proposal to implement the rule on transparency in the Treaty of Amsterdam: Article 255. Finland would have liked to commence that work during its presidential term, but obviously the most important consideration is that we have a well-drafted proposal by the start of next year.
The Cologne European Council clearly restricted the development of a common security and defence policy to crisis management. A common defence policy is thus not being discussed. In order to develop the European Union’s crisis management capability, in Helsinki we will focus on evaluating target levels and the resources they will require in all areas of crisis management. We will also be preparing to make proposals regarding the institutions in order to make the decision-making process in the European Union relating to crisis management more effective. Similarly, we must ponder our relations with those countries outside the European Union that desire, and are able, to participate in joint operations.
One special strength of the European Union, when compared to military organisations such as NATO or the WEU, is its sheer size and coverage. The European Union will have at its disposal all the tools of crisis management – the political, economic and humanitarian means and, in the future, a military capability. This, it is believed, will increase the union’s scope for preventing crises.
The decision will probably be made at the Helsinki European Council to strengthen the compatibility of civil crisis management resources among the Member States, the Union and NGOs and speed up the readiness to use them. At the same time we shall stress the need to avoid overlap. We must try to develop the EU’s own contribution to the work of other organisations such as the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe. We must ensure smooth cooperation in the field. Furthermore, we are looking into ways of establishing a common data base and coordination system. Similarly, the EU’s capability for independent action should be strengthened. We consider it a matter of urgency to improve the civil police’s involvement in crisis management. It is hoped that the conclusions drawn at Helsinki will speed up developments in EU civil crisis management in the same way as the Cologne Council gave a boost to developments in military crisis management. Before I go on to speak about military crisis management, I would like to emphasise separately, that, although civil and military crisis management are two separate areas, they have to be made to fit together perfectly.
Improving resources will also be a major issue in the conclusions drawn at Helsinki on military crisis management. The Member States would now seem to be prepared to approve common target levels. Talks are still continuing on how clearly these targets should be defined and what their level should be. However, the aim is to be able to implement the whole spectrum of the Petersberg Tasks. The European Union is thus reorganising the resources and structures it has at its disposal for military crisis management. The preparations for the Helsinki European Council include discussions for target levels that are in practice the equivalent of the current operations in Bosnia and Kosovo in terms of requirements and size. There are approximately 50 000 military personnel from EU Member States involved in these operations. It has been proposed that troops should be ready to be deployed within 60 days and be able to serve in a crisis region for two years at a time. The proposed timetable for the implementation of these targets is 2002 – 2003. The actual development work would focus on the operational capability of troops through training and improving equipment. What problems are there, then? They concern the areas of intelligence, systems of leadership and air transport in particular. Europe is still a long way from being self-sufficient in these areas. Decisions are also to be taken at the Helsinki European Council on the new institutions relating to crisis management that will be needed, including a Standing Political and Security Committee, a Military Committee, a body to coordinate civil crisis management, and a military staff to carry out analytical work.
At Cologne there was an aim to replace the WEU with the EU’s own operation and direct cooperation between the EU and NATO in military operations relating to the Petersberg Tasks. With this in mind, it was decided to create arrangements for the six European NATO countries outside the EU to participate on as broad a basis as possible. Arrangements should likewise be made for cooperation in respect of the other EU European partners. At Helsinki, we may at last agree on some general guidelines for such arrangements. The intention is to create an arrangement for cooperation in communications relating to general crisis management and preceding decisions on operations. I would nevertheless like to remind everyone that during the preparations we have considered it self-evident that the EU should always itself take a decision to embark on a military operation. Such a decision must be unanimous. In addition, Member States would obviously decide on their own involvement.
I have consciously made reference to the future in my descriptions of events, as representatives of Member States are still negotiating on these issues, and the last General Affairs Council is to sit next week on 6 December. But this is what the situation looks like at present.
In my speech I have only addressed some of the core issues to be discussed at the European Council. Along with them, Helsinki will also deal with questions relating to economic policy and employment. The employment guidelines adopted at the meeting for the year 2000 will require the Member States to invest substantially in policies to improve employment. In addition to employment matters, we will also be debating the coordination of economic policy, the workings of the single market and the information society. But Parliament is probably already aware of this.
This brief survey – which lasted too long, I fear – concentrated on the main subject areas of the meeting, and I would like to just mention briefly one matter in finishing. On the first day of the meeting we want the European Union as a whole to adopt the Millennium Declaration. In this brief and clear declaration we should be able to explain why we need the Union, what we have achieved up till now, what challenges lie ahead of us and how we will respond to them. And that will be no easy task.
In just over a week’s time the heads of our governments and states will be arriving in Helsinki for the last European Council of this millennium. For my own part, and on behalf of my government, I would like to bid you welcome, Madam President, as representative of the European Parliament, to my home city in December. I look forward to your address and the ensuing debate.
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The main topic of the forthcoming European Council will be enlargement. In Helsinki, the Union will embark in earnest on preparations for the time when it will truly live up to its name: a pan-European, stable, effective and transparent Union. The talks we have had on enlargement thus far during our presidential term have progressed according to plan. In the negotiations with the leading applicant countries, the Union has opened seven new negotiation chapters, and we hope to be able to open talks also in respect of the eighth chapter, which deals with the environment and has proved to be particularly difficult. So far the outcome is in line with our set objectives.
As far as the future is concerned, the Member States all agree that at Helsinki we can decide on initiating negotiations with Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta. Although there are great differences in political and economic development among these countries, we are now justified in inviting them to the negotiating table.
Enlargement is very much a process of adjustment. Both the applicant countries and the Union itself will have to adjust to a Europe whose main driving force will be a European Union of 25, perhaps even 30 Member States. Access to the negotiating table will give the applicant countries the support they need en route to democracy, rule of law and a healthy economy. Conducting parallel negotiations with twelve countries will be difficult. It will be very important to insist that the criteria for membership agreed at the European Council in Copenhagen are honoured. The talks must be conducted in such a way that each applicant is given the opportunity to progress according to its own degree of readiness.
For enlargement to proceed on a sound basis, we must also have the courage to be open and honest, both with each other and with the applicant countries and their people. The Union cannot yet promise one country seeking membership a date when it will become a member of the Union. Even to lay down a timetable in this connection would be very ambitious. But what the Union can do is to establish targets for itself and, at the same time, make it clear to others under what conditions and when it would be ready to expand.
A particularly thorny question, and one that has been cause for most debate beforehand, is that of Turkey. The Finnish Presidency has strengthened relations between the Union and Turkey. I am very pleased that relations between Turkey and Greece have improved, and that both these countries are in favour of UN talks on Cyprus. As representative of the country to hold the presidency, I hope that the European Council will find it possible to recognise Turkey’s status as a candidate member of the Union. It is clear to all that Turkey still has a long and arduous path ahead before it can meet the Copenhagen criteria. Obviously, the primary responsibility for this lies with Turkey. But it is also very much a question of how the Union might best further positive development and strengthen the forces of democracy in that country. The Turkish Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the death sentence pronounced on the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Öçalan, was worrying, although expected. I expressed the Finnish Presidency’s position on the decision as soon as it had been announced. I reiterated our position that the Union does not approve of the death penalty. I appealed to the Turks not to enforce the sentence and to await the decision of the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg. In other words, I called on Turkey to adhere to the position it has thus far adopted on a practical moratorium in respect of the death penalty.
At the moment we are putting the finishing touches to the Finnish Presidency’s report to the European Council on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference. The report consists of two parts, the first of which concerns the items most likely to be on the IGC agenda. In accordance with the mandate we were given at Cologne, our preparations have focused on the composition of the Commission, the reweighting of votes in the Council, increasing qualified majority decisions and certain other institutional matters closely connected with these issues. The other part of the report deals with issues that one or more Member States would like to see added to the agenda.
The other issues related to the three main areas have been the subject of heated debate. In various connections the following issues have been raised: the development of the work of the EU Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, the distribution of seats in the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, the responsibilities of the Members of the Commission and external economic relations. These questions are closely connected with the work of the institutions in an expanding Union and, for that reason, their inclusion on the agenda in the next IGC is justified. Regarding issues outside the Cologne mandate but which have been taken up, for example in Parliament, I would mention the issues of defence and flexibility."@en1
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