Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-01-Speech-3-070"
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"en.19991201.7.3-070"2
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"Mr President, the whole house agrees with Mrs Halonen: Helsinki must inject new life into the process of enlargement of the European Union. The individual negotiations which we want to conduct with 12 applicant countries should not become mere routine. The last Intergovernmental Conference of the century marks the end of a millennium of European wars and you must ensure, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that the foundations are laid so that there will never again be another millennium of wars in Europe. That is the aim of enlargement, to unite the whole of Europe in a European Union.
Mrs Halonen, we support what you have said regarding the negotiations and how they are to be conducted and are also in agreement with what Mr Prodi has said on the matter. We find that all well and good, but what you have said about the preparation of accession, about the so-called Amsterdam
that is not enough for us. We want comprehensive reform of the European Union. If we are to open the doors of the European house, of our European Union, in order to take in another 12 lodgers in addition to the 15 already living here, then one visit from the cleaner is not enough, we need to convert the whole house. That is something I have heard too little about, not only from you, but also from the other governments of the European Union. I know what you are thinking and perhaps what your intentions are: let us just begin with a few minor reforms at this Intergovernmental Conference and then, after next year’s Intergovernmental Conference, there will be another Intergovernmental Conference and so on and so forth.
I put it to you that the people of the European Union are tired of seeing the EU stumble from one Intergovernmental Conference to the next, taking so many tiny steps that they no longer know which direction they are going in. We must show them once and for all what our image of the European Union and of the future of Europe is, instead of watching the EU constantly stumbling from one conference to the next.
With regard to the common defence policy, we welcome the statement which you have made today, but there must be more to European summits than statements and papers. We want you to take the decisions needed in Helsinki so that concrete initiatives can be introduced into both military and non-military aspects of the common defence policy and to stipulate the operational capacities needed and the institutions in which the decisions are to be taken.
Finally, we want, on the day after Helsinki, on 12 December, to be able to talk about a real European Summit, a Summit from which we can look out into the new millennium and not just a mole-hill without a view. You have the responsibility and the opportunity to ensure that the Finnish Presidency at the end of this century goes down in history as a great presidency!"@en1
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