Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-12-12-Speech-2-145"

PredicateValue (sorted: default)
rdf:type
dcterms:Date
dcterms:Is Part Of
dcterms:Language
lpv:document identification number
"en.20001212.7.2-145"2
lpv:hasSubsequent
lpv:speaker
lpv:spokenAs
lpv:translated text
"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have three comments to make on what has been said during this debate. The first relates to something which you reminded us of this morning, Mrs Schreyer. Compared with many national budgets, the increase in the Community is somewhat higher but, in relation to expenditure ratios, it is still very low and sets an excellent example for many national budgets. We must tell the public that, if the national foreign or other secretaries of state keep handing work over to be carried out at European level, such as the whole Balkans programme, then we must also bear in mind that this work requires money and that funds must be made available. My second comment relates to the common foreign and security policy. Tremendous progress was made here during the 1990s. During the conflict in Bosnia, Europe was still not in a position to speak with one voice: one country was purported to be on the side of the Serbs, another to be on the side of the Croats. We almost seemed to be back in the policy of alliances of the 19th century. Now, at the end of this century, at the end of the 1990s, Europe is speaking with one voice, Europe is the biggest civil reconstructor in the Balkans, bigger than the United States, and is doing a good job; through its budget and its policy it really did help to make peaceful revolution possible in Serbia. This needed to be said quite clearly about European policy at the end of this financial year and after this decade of confusion in the Balkans. Foreign states are becoming more important to us and we hope that, with the new posts provided, the Commission will do the job which we expect it to do. We are being up front with our praise and you may be sure that we shall seek to exercise strict control in the future. There is much talk of post-Nice. Nice was yet again the scene of national haggling for individual states. We have overcome this to a considerable degree in foreign policy and I hope in the forthcoming budget debates that we shall take more decisions of substance and spend more time on the problems and less time haggling over national interests in this budget."@en1

Named graphs describing this resource:

1http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/English.ttl.gz
2http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/Events_and_structure.ttl.gz
3http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/spokenAs.ttl.gz

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph