Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-19-Speech-2-100"
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"en.20021119.2.2-100"2
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".
Mr President, today, I will be devoting my entire speech to Slovakia, the country for which I am rapporteur on behalf of Parliament. Slovakia has reached the final leg of the negotiations on EU membership, which merits congratulations in view of the fact that, four years ago, that country was still in political isolation. In two consecutive elections, the population left no doubt as to its democratic and pro-European persuasion. According to opinion polls, support for the EU remains strong.
Today is not the right time to reach a final verdict; this is something that Parliament will be doing at the beginning of next year. We still, of course, await the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit, but I am convinced that Slovakia will be capable of bringing the negotiations to a successful end. Today’s resolution, therefore, also gives a kind of limited snapshot in time; we will be drawing up the full report next year. As with the other candidate countries, a great deal needs to be done before its accession in 2004.
I should like to give Slovakia two priorities in this respect.
In my view, strengthening its administrative capacity is the most important priority. It must be possible to implement EU rules satisfactorily and to spend EU funds properly. This is also in line with the aspiration for a more transparent government that will crack down hard on corruption. Slovakia’s new government has announced initiatives in this connection, and we are awaiting the reports with interest and some trepidation. In the same framework of a transparent society and transparent government, it is important that they should continue to reform the judiciary and the structure around it.
We still have major anxieties about the situation of the Roma, not only in respect of Slovakia, in fact. Every time I am directly confronted with their living conditions, I realise that of all the intentions that have been formulated over the past years, too little has as yet been realised in practice. I know that the problems cannot be solved over the space of a few years. The implementation of policy costs time and money. This is why I am asking the Slovakian Government for a kind of multi-annual commitment to solve those problems that will continue to exist post-accession. The same text can, in fact, be found in the report on the Czech Republic. Moreover, I am of the view that the position of the Roma in the enlarged European Union will be so unique that the Convention will have no choice but to devote attention to it.
We are asking a great deal. We are doing this in the expectation that the Slovaks will recognise the fairness of this, just as they can expect fairness in the final assessment. We cannot ask more from new Member States than from the current Member States. This is why I take exception to the often unfair criticism levelled at Slovakia, including in my own country. Slovakia has drawn a line under its Meciar past. It is the achievements today that count and this is on which we should base our judgment."@en1
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