Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-03-Speech-2-123"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to say a few words about the
for the scenario which many here have called for. The first
of course, is that we ourselves must be ready. This has been stipulated several times already in the Councils in Berlin, Cologne and Helsinki and will again be expressly confirmed in Nice. We will be ready as soon the institutional reforms have been decided and have taken effect. We have a final date for that. Our final date is 2002.
I am delighted with the turn which this debate has taken so far; it shows me that we can count on a great deal of support from Parliament for principles which inform the way in which the negotiations are handled and for our resolve to start tackling outstanding problems quickly and resolutely.
This implies that we shall not be setting any more conditions. In other words, if the reform process, which I welcome, is to proceed and we already start setting our sights on a post-Nice agenda, perhaps another intergovernmental conference, then we cannot create a link of cause and effect between any such intergovernmental conference and enlargement by saying that its results must come in before the first wave of enlargement can take place. That is out of the question. It would have all the negative consequences which several speakers have evoked in connection with failure in Nice.
And it would be on our part. The financial conditions have been in place since Berlin; we have a budget of EUR 80 billion for the entire project and I shall not be asking for more money for pre-accession aid, for example, because I am satisfied that we can duly and properly disburse the resources at our disposal. I do not want to allow any backlogs to build up here, as has happened in other areas of foreign aid over a number of years. For now, I see no need to discuss the financial perspectives in connection with enlargement. We are assuming that we can implement the project up to 2006 within the framework of the financial perspectives.
As far as the other
are concerned, they are not within our powers of discretion or disposal. For the rest, the candidates alone set the pace of the process. None of you should be surprised if the negotiators, prime ministers, speakers and members of your national parliaments complain that it is all taking too long – apart from the fact that it is a favourite pastime in Europe – everything takes far too long with the Commission, I know all about that! You must not forget that these people represent interests. I would be most surprised if they did not exert any pressure. That is what they are there for, to exert pressure. But it is always worth asking, when someone complains that it is all taking too long, if their country has in fact supplied all the information requested, if their country has in fact already passed all the laws needed in order to adopt the
if their country has in fact created all the structures needed in order to apply the
. If you ask these questions, you will frequently find that the other person is somewhat embarrassed, because they are often forced to admit that there is still work to be done back home.
I would advise great composure when faced with candidates pressing for deadlines. We stand by what we have said: we will be ready to welcome new members by 1 January 2003. That applies to anyone who is ready by then. We shall also help everyone to be ready by then. But the fact remains that, as things stand today, 3 October 2000, I cannot tell you when any single country in the accession process will be ready for accession. I cannot say that today of any one country.
You may of course conclude from this that we should set a date nonetheless. The problem is that, if you set a date, there is a danger that the enthusiasm for reform in these countries will wane. Why do you think certain politicians in these countries are pressing so hard for an accession date set in political stone? They are pressing so hard for a date because they want, if possible, to avoid tackling certain, extremely difficult reforms which they have yet to make. We need always to strike the right balance. If we do not set a date, we may cause disappointment; if we set too early a date, a certain complacency may creep in; in other words, we shall address the question of dates when the time is right, i.e. if we can say when a country is ready for accession and when it is not with a sufficient degree of certainty. Unfortunately, now is not the time. But, as I have already indicated, all the countries are approaching the point at which they will be ready for accession relatively quickly.
I should like to refer briefly to two or three comments made during the debate. Mr Hänsch said – in addition to much with which I agreed – that the safety of nuclear power stations was an important issue. Agreed! But just to be sure that there is no misunderstanding between us: you said that these nuclear power stations must be shut down before accession takes place. That is news to me. The policy was to agree with these countries on when nuclear power stations would be shut down. That was the condition for starting negotiations. And that is what happened. I hope that these countries will not be refused accession until the agreed closing dates have been reached, because that would be pretty late in some cases. I assume this was just a slip of the tongue.
I should like to make one other point: We did not – as Mr Marset Campos said – pressgang candidates into NATO at the same time. I raise this point because it is an extremely interesting point. In fact, as you will remember, NATO and the USA were most reticent to grant the wish of central and eastern European countries to join NATO. It took years for them to make up their mind. The pressure to join NATO, the idea of joining NATO did not originate in Washington, London or anywhere else; it arose quite clearly in Warsaw, Prague and Budapest. And I can tell you why; because these people wanted to be on the right side once and for all, i.e. securely anchored in the family of democratic nations. Which is also why they expressed their wish to join the European Union.
The last point which I would like to make concerns agriculture. It was said during the debate that opening the borders would cause the immediate collapse of agriculture in certain countries, such as Poland. Allow me to point out that the opening of borders to agricultural and other products has already been extensively agreed in the Europe Agreements. We have already done this to the widest extent. As far as agricultural produce is concerned, we have concluded an agreement with Poland whereby as much agricultural produce as possible – in fact nearly 100% of Polish agricultural produce – has free access to the European market even before accession and vice versa: our products have free access to the Polish market. In other words liberalisation of the trade in agricultural products has already been agreed and the Poles are not worried that Polish agriculture will collapse as a result. The problems which beset Polish agriculture are structural and social policy problems and we shall need to address them most intensively in due course."@en1
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