Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-248"
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"en.20001115.16.3-248"2
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"Mr President, it is with tremendous pleasure, profound respect for you and the people of Yugoslavia, and with great hope for the future that is opening up in your country and in the new relations between us that the European Parliament welcomes you here today.
I would like to conclude by saying that the European Union is preparing to welcome more than ten countries from Central and Eastern Europe who have regained their own freedom and democracy. Their accession will be a major step towards the reunification, in an expression of solidarity, of the family of states and peoples that make up Europe. I am certain that there are many of us in this Chamber who are in no doubt that, one day, if Yugoslavia so wishes, the doors of the European Union will open to welcome it in. This would be entirely natural, as we are on the same continent of Europe and we share the same values.
Mr President, we are very much looking forward to your address and we hope it will trace out the paths of our rediscovered cooperation and brotherhood, which we will henceforth be travelling along together.
I extended this invitation to you on the very day on which the result of the democratic elections left us with no shadow of a doubt of the will of the people, which had been expressed freely and overwhelmingly in your favour.
Now that the dark pages of the last ten years have been turned, your presence before this House bears witness to our common desire to see Yugoslavia quickly rediscover its rightful place in the family of Europe. You expressed this wish yourself when you took office and, for its part, the European Union immediately made the first significant gesture of confidence that you were seeking, the lifting of international sanctions.
We were sitting in the first part-session in October when, at the time we were debating the situation in Yugoslavia, we learned of the courageous reaction of the Serbian people and, ladies and gentlemen, you well remember I am sure, we immediately called for international sanctions to be lifted.
But the jubilation accompanying this great victory for freedom, which you gained by peaceful means at great risk to your own freedom, must not lead us to underestimate the enormous challenges that await you: the consolidation of democracy; the restoration of peace and harmony among all the communities living in Yugoslavia; its reconstruction with a view to rediscovering the road to prosperity; its peaceful relations with its neighbours; the return of displaced people to their villages; those missing in action, whose families desperately wait for news; the necessary cooperation, when the time comes, with the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to ensure that what took place can never happen again and, finally, of course, the institutional future of Kosovo, whose wounds are still open, as well as the future of Montenegro.
The European Parliament is indeed well aware that, after ten years of conflict, not everything is possible in Yugoslavia, at least not straightaway, and that urgent actions need prioritising. The Balkans, to which you belong, are on the dividing line between the great civilisations and religions which have, all too often, left their tragic mark on our common past as Europeans – on you and us alike.
As regards the most sensitive issues that remain to be resolved, notably in relation to Kosovo, the European Parliament has always hoped that peaceful solutions will be found, in accordance with UN resolutions on the integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia, in terms of fundamental human rights.
Rest assured, Mr President, that it is in this spirit that the European Parliament, co-decider of the Community budget, will lend you its full support so that European aid for the reconstruction of your country is truly in line with its needs.
More specifically, as far as necessary emergency measures are concerned, as you know, on Monday, the first convoy of tankers transporting heating fuel and heating oil from the European Union arrived in your country. As your Minister for Mines and Energy, Mr Antic, so aptly remarked, I see in this the proof that Serbia has friends in Europe."@en1
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