Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-18-Speech-3-023"
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"en.20021218.3.3-023"2
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"Madam President, Winston Churchill once spoke of an iron curtain coming down over Europe. Today we can safely say that the iron curtain has not only been lifted but has been dismantled, packed up in its box and consigned to the attic of history where it will serve to remind us of the horrors of the past. We have a lot to celebrate today. Copenhagen reunited Europe 13 years after the Berlin Wall came down and 21 years to the day after martial law was imposed in Poland and already these things feel as if they belong to a different age.
I congratulate the Danish presidency and the Commission on bringing to a successful conclusion ten sets of parallel and very diverse negotiations, bearing in mind that only a couple of weeks ago, it seemed as if we would not do it. I think it is impossible to under-estimate the importance of what has been achieved in Copenhagen.
However, at the risk of being accused of putting a dampener on our celebrations, I must point out that we are not there yet. There is still a lot to be done. The candidate countries still have to meet our standards and they must not be allowed to slacken their efforts. The Commission still has to draw up its final report on the candidate countries, and we must ensure that the process does not degenerate into a messy argument about the imposition of safeguards. We still have to get the process ratified by parliaments, including, in particular, by the European Parliament. We will scrutinise the treaties with care and attention to detail and no one should take Parliament's vote for granted.
We still have to sell enlargement to the people, both in the EU and in the candidate countries. We cannot take the people's assent for granted. Notwithstanding Mr Rovsing's remarks just now, we must still make the Kaliningrad solution work, and work in a way which does not undermine the sovereignty of Lithuania. We must still ensure that the financial arrangements actually work and we must also ensure that Parliament's role in those financial arrangements is fully respected.
We still have to reform our common agricultural policy before it bankrupts us financially and politically. We still have to decide how an EU of 25 or more can work, because failure to reform our decision-making process will guarantee that this enlargement is the breaking and not the making of the European Union.
A lot has been done, but there is still a lot to do. We must not lessen our efforts towards Bulgaria and Romania, nor must they assume that 2007 is a guaranteed date of accession. I welcome the decision taken concerning Turkey – although I would have preferred the date of 1 May 2004 – but this must become a defining moment in our relations with Turkey. We guarantee that negotiations will begin if they meet the Copenhagen criteria by December 2004, but equally, we must be clear that, if the criteria are not met, then Turkey's accession will be off the agenda for the foreseeable future. We must stop playing games with each other.
I welcome the determination to resolve the Cyprus issue and would point out that, because we have always said that we would not allow third parties to veto our future, this is forcing us finally to reach a settlement in this long-running debate. Prime Minister, I am told by my government that in Copenhagen, you were always well briefed, determined, clever and gave real leadership. If we are to overcome the obstacles ahead – institutional change and the need for political and economic reform – we need such leadership more often and then we can really celebrate."@en1
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