Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-12-14-Speech-2-075"
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"en.19991214.4.2-075"2
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"Mr President, enlargement is the single most important factor for Europe’s stability and welfare. The best way of building sustainable security is by creating a web of mutual dependency among peoples and nations to the benefit of all, just as the European Union has done. In addition to providing a breakthrough for the new enlargement strategy, the Helsinki Summit has also given necessary concrete form to the common foreign and security policy. Kosovo has taught us that, in extreme situations, we must be able to intervene, be able to intervene in time and be able to intervene with credibility. It is good that we should now be building up such a capability.
Now, we Social Democrats are expecting the Council and the Commission, together with Commissioner Patten, to foster the same creativity, energy and resolution in the actual prevention of crises, too. It is, in spite of everything, better – much better – that we should have the ability to prevent conflicts than that we should be forced to intervene after a conflict has arisen. I should prefer to liken the European Union’s role to that of the head of a fire brigade, responsible for preventing fires, rather than to that of a fireman turning out to fight fires that have already started.
The brutality of the Russian campaign in Chechnya shows that we have a long way to go before achieving a peaceful order in Europe. The Summit was gratifyingly clear in what it had to say. Both stringency and foresight were expressed: stringency in condemning the atrocities and also in considering limiting strategic aid to Russia and converting portions of the TACIS aid into humanitarian aid; and foresight in deciding to maintain dialogue with Moscow and long-term cooperation with Russia. Russia is needed in Europe. We shall never have security in Europe without democracy and prosperity in Russia. However, Russia also needs Europe. Following the enlargement of the European Union, more than half of Russia’s trade will be with the EU. It now already has its most important export ports in the vicinity of the EU, namely in the Baltic.
The decision to accord applicant status to Turkey is welcomed by the Group of the Party of European Socialists. In this context, the Greek Government deserves great praise for its wisdom and strength of principle. We have now all obtained guarantees to the effect that border conflicts are to be solved by peaceful means and, if need be, by means of international arbitration. Nor has Cyprus’s applicant status suffered. The most important message is presumably that we can now say to Turkey that it may become an applicant for membership of the European Union on certain clear conditions. In other words, there is no impenetrable Berlin Wall beside the Bosphorus. Now, it is up to Turkey to demonstrate its European vocation through its actions. We now want to see concrete progress, above all when it comes to full citizens’ rights for the Kurdish minority."@en1
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