Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-04-Speech-2-061"
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"en.20010904.3.2-061"2
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"The example of the free movement of workers has shown the difficulty of the issues we now have to deal with. The compromise based on the Commission proposal will bring the most liberal and most flexible solution to the problem yet seen. We shall need as much freedom of movement as possible, and for a number of years also as much security as possible.
What we can say today is this: the trend of the last few years is continuing. All the applicant countries with whom we have been negotiating continue to satisfy the political criteria. It is clear that the prospect of membership has made a decisive contribution to stability in the young democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. The value of the system’s stability for Europe as a whole can be seen everywhere where there are no concrete prospects for accession. We see increasingly that a definite expectation of accession is the strongest and most effective motor for necessary reforms.
I should like to leave you in no doubt that in the negotiations the Commission is continuing to press for human rights and the rights of minorities to be fully respected. That includes banning all discrimination on grounds of age, gender, sexual orientation or religious conviction. We are continuing to observe carefully the position of minorities and the development of the rule of law. It is symptomatic that national minorities in the applicant states are particularly keen on rapid accession because they see membership of the European Union as their most effective form of protection.
While the situation of the Russian minorities in the Baltic countries continues to improve, the integration of the Roma remains a thorny and substantial issue. It would be pure illusion to think that social and cultural discrimination against the Roma could be abolished before accession. That will take decades to achieve. But we are asking all applicant states to develop credible strategies to improve the integration of the Roma and to put them into practice before accession.
I can also at last see light at the end of the tunnel as regards the condition of orphanage children and the adoption trade in Romania. I want to be cautious because we have already experienced many disappointments, and in the past many fine words have not been matched by deeds. But with the present government that is starting to change. Its readiness to enforce a moratorium on international adoptions was an important sign.
There are such overwhelming indications that the existing system has knowingly and deliberately encouraged the abuse of children that the entire system will have to be radically reformed before international adoptions can be allowed again. I am convinced that parents who really want children and reputable non-governmental organisations that help them to satisfy that desire will be the first to understand that protecting children against possible abuse must be the top priority. At this point I should like to mention that the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Romania, Baroness Nicholson, has personally done the greatest service in uncovering an incredibly corrupt system and that the progress we can now see would not have come about without her persistence.
So far as the economic criteria are concerned, even when we apply the necessarily strict yardsticks we can see that here, too, the positive trend is continuing. Free-market reforms have not yet been completed everywhere, but the market economy has been established everywhere. In most cases, the applicant countries are already competitive on the internal market because the exchange of goods and services between them and the EU has to a large extent already been liberalised.
The overall economic situation is another matter. We need to be very, very realistic here. It is true that the candidate countries are achieving higher growth rates than the EU-15 average, but economically they are still a very long way behind. It will be a very long time before we can speak of a real approximation. Here, too, we should be speaking in terms of a period of a whole generation. This means that, even after the accessions, enlargement will not have a drastic economic effect on the present Member States. Most of the positive economic effects are already with us. They will continue to grow. But enlargement will not at first bring large annual boosts to growth for the EU 15, although, of course, border regions and the future Member States’ neighbours in general will experience stronger positive effects.
All the same, the economic effect must not be underestimated. There will be a sustained improvement in EU growth in the long term. The European Union’s roll in international competition will be strengthened. The economics and finance ministers and the Commission are watching the macroeconomic direction taken by the future new members closely. In some of them, inflation rates and budget deficits are too high. The balance of payments in some candidate countries has structural weaknesses. There is intensive dialogue with the candidate countries about macroeconomic stability and there is no dispute about the objective.
In the light of the impending introduction of the euro I want to point out once again that the new members will not automatically belong to the euro zone. That requires special preparation and a separate decision. The Maastricht criteria will have to be satisfied in full. But there will be no opting out of monetary union either. At present, there are clear priorities: first the Copenhagen criteria for accession, then the Maastricht criteria for the euro.
I would also like to use this example to point once again to the Commission’s understanding of its own role in enlargement. The Commission has to look to the interests of the Union as a whole. It is in the interests of the Union as a whole that enlargement should not demand more of any Member State than it is actually able to give. In making its proposals, the Commission also has to take into account what the applicant countries and future members are able to bear and what they are not. Unless we are able to compromise, we shall not make the necessary progress, especially since we are now faced with highly controversial issues such as justice and home affairs, competition, taxation, transport, the budget, regional policy and agriculture.
I can already say that the Commission’s next strategy paper will focus on the assessment of the third Copenhagen criterion, namely the complete application of EU law. That is a perfectly logical sequence. Up until now, the main thing was the transposition of the
itself. Now we are looking primarily at the ability to enforce and apply it in full. As you know, there were still major deficits in this area last year. We have strongly urged the applicant countries to remove those deficits. I must repeat here what I said on an earlier occasion: severe deficits remaining in the areas of administrative capacities and the legal system may become serious obstacles to accession.
Before concluding, I want to say a brief word about two regional problems, Cyprus and Kaliningrad. Our strategic objective is still to receive a united Cyprus as a new member. We are therefore continuing to give our strong support to the UN Secretary-General’s efforts to find a solution to the Cyprus conflict. I am very pleased to be able to say that we are working closely and confidently with the United Nations in this question. It was no accident that the UN Secretary-General’s meeting with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Denktash in Salzburg last Tuesday was preceded by a meeting between Mr Denktash and myself the day before. I must thank the foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, the presidency and the special representatives of the United Nations, the United Kingdom and the USA for their close cooperation and constructive dialogue in this matter. I very much hope that things will now get moving again on the Cyprus issue and that talks on substantive issues will soon begin.
We should now concentrate all our efforts on resolving the conflict and refrain from speculating about what we might do if we fail. The Helsinki resolutions apply and give us all the room for manoeuvre we need.
Kaliningrad is an entirely different matter. It concerns the effects of enlargement on our neighbours, in this case Russia. While fully recognising Russian sovereignty over the Kaliningrad territory, we have made proposals to Russia about how Kaliningrad can benefit from its position as a kind of island within the EU in future. Dialogue in the matter has started, albeit rather sluggishly. We would like to see a faster tempo here. The immediate neighbours in the region, Poland and Lithuania, share our point of view. It is a general principle that enlargement should not harm third countries. In Russia’s case in particular I am absolutely convinced that Russia will benefit once the political and economic dynamics of the enlarged Union on Russia’s borders show their full effects.
Now one question remains. How can we ensure that people in the European Union and in the candidate countries will agree to the objective of enlargement? We need to make greater efforts here. I agree with what Mr Brok said about it. I have a proper degree of scepticism about opinion polls. But we cannot ignore the Eurobarometer findings and the trends in opinion in the candidate countries. However, we must not see the question of acceptance as purely a problem of communication. If we have problems of communication in politics, in my experience the problem lies with the policy.
Many people are frightened by enlargement. If those fears are based on fact, we can deal with them by information and participation. But if the fears are unspecific or part of a very general unease about the way European things are going, then we need more than a communication strategy. Then, the key issue is: What does Europe still mean to the people in the European Union? How can we make the idea of European unification as inspiring again as it once was?
If today’s European Union does not inspire people, how can we expect the prospects of an even larger EU to give rise to positive expectations? The answers to these questions must be found in another debate, but that debate has already begun. If we can develop clarity of goals and of language, if we can find enough courage and vision, then social acceptance for enlargement will also be forthcoming.
When it comes to negotiating the chapter on justice and home affairs, the protection of the future external borders is a central issue. We are faced here with a classic conflict of aims. On the one hand, enlargement must not lead to a new division of Europe. There must be no new dividing lines created. Traditional cross-border contacts that often go back hundreds of years must not be made impossible or intolerably difficult, especially in places where the same language is spoken on both sides of the borders and there are close cultural ties.
On the other hand, at the end of this round of enlargement we will have an eastern border extending almost from the North Cape almost to the Bosporus. That border will have to meet the security needs of today’s EU citizens. A secure frontier is one of the essential prerequisites. New members will not be able to be fully integrated into the Schengen system until the border system fully meets Schengen standards.
The other topics, such as taxation and competition, and to a large extent also agriculture, raise enormous social questions. On the one hand, this concerns the functioning of the internal market, but on the other also the matter of social cohesion in the countries undergoing transformation. We shall have to decide how much flexibility the Union is able to show so that enlargement is not experienced as a social shock in the future new Member States the day after accession.
When it comes to agriculture, we are dealing with an
that may change radically in the next few years. Many observers believe it would be better to go for agricultural reform first and then talk to the candidate countries about agriculture. If we were to do that, we would be setting a new condition. There would not be an enlargement timetable that was anything like reliable. The end of the project would be put off indefinitely.
As regards the financing of enlargement, the Commission will ensure that the budgetary effects of its proposals for negotiating positions are fully in line with the expenditure ceilings agreed in Berlin for the period up until 2006. Account must, of course, be taken of the necessary adjustments for the number of new Member States provided for in Agenda 2000. But even with those adjustments, we shall not exceed the ceiling decided in Berlin in 1999.
I want to turn now to the situation in the candidate countries themselves. The transposition of Community law is now proceeding apace everywhere. Most countries have taken highly effective organisational measures to deal with the massive amount of legislation in time. The instruments deployed, in particular twinning and interparliamentary cooperation, have also proved their worth.
The Commission will be describing the progress made in meeting the Copenhagen criteria in the progress reports for the year 2001. These reports will be discussed by the Commission and adopted in early November."@en1
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