Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-26-Speech-4-141"
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"en.20001026.5.4-141"2
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"Mr President, for many people in the EU, Albania is far away, further than the back of beyond, and yet the Albanians are one of the oldest European civilisations. In the Middle Ages they fought against the Ottoman invasion and they defended themselves against them as Europeans until well into modern times. They have suffered particularly badly from European disregard. In the nineteenth century, better prospects were held out for all the Balkan nations at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. In Berlin, the Albanians were almost brushed aside from the table – their views were not taken into account – and in the twentieth century, they have suffered greatly under one of the most terrible ideologies of the twentieth century, namely under socialism and communism in a particularly brutal manifestation. That is why, today, we have a European responsibility for this European Albania. That is why I welcome the line taken in the report and the approach adopted by the action plan. However, we need to make absolutely certain that we do not operate double standards.
Much has been said here about minority rights. I should like to say that we are right to demand minority rights of the Albanians. But if we do so then we must also introduce them across the European Union. We have not managed to do this. We do not have any European standards on the protection of minorities. In all Albania's neighbouring countries – apart from Kosovo, where the Albanians are in a majority – we have Albanian minorities, and we can demonstrate here what the EU's standards on minorities are.
I should like to make a second point. Like Mr Lisi, I believe that we need to incorporate burden-sharing in our policy on asylum and refugees. But the problem is that we have fought for this very point, and neither in this House nor in the European Union have we achieved a majority in favour of a system of burden-sharing based on quotas. Precisely in the case of Albania we see that it can affect any Member State. That is why it is important for us not to spend any longer tinkering about with the symptoms, but for us finally to establish a policy on asylum and refugees based on solidarity, with fixed quotas and a stable system of burden-sharing, before catastrophe strikes."@en1
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