Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-18-Speech-3-050"
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"en.20021218.3.3-050"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it has been said, and rightly so, that the Copenhagen Council put an end to the post-war division of Europe. We also need to put an end to a much older division, by which I mean the difficulties preventing eastern Europe from moving from the Middle Ages to the present day, difficulties which condemned it to a period of endless stagnation and cost it dearly in terms of both money and blood. It is time we paid our respects to the people of eastern Europe for their persistence and for their faith in the concept of progress, which I hope will be vindicated today.
There has been a parallel achievement in southern Europe. It does not have the same material dimensions as eastern Europe, but it does have similar moral dimensions. Look at Cyprus, an ancient European people, a Hellenic people, which found itself in the grip of a nineteenth century colonial regime and finally – and rightly – rebelled against it in the middle of the twentieth century. As in numerous other instances, the consequences of that rebellion were – in English for the benefit of my British colleagues – an ‘independence of sorts’, but an independence accompanied by the partition of two nations, with the colonial power playing one off against the other on the basis of the classic principle of divide and rule. Today’s Europe, with the admission of Cyprus and the call for the island’s two nations to be reunited, will remedy the tragic consequences of the colonial adventure in - or rather the retrogressive order which governed - this European country. This is what is important, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, not the fact that no agreement was reached. Of course, the Greek side responds fully to your call for an agreement to be reached by 27 February and, if there is a similar response on the Turkish side, an agreement will be reached. But what you should really be looking at is the response in the hearts of the Turkish-Cypriots, whose demonstrations show exactly what they think of their reactionary leaders. This is the real response and the real brilliance of Europe in the hearts of its people, when Europe sticks to its principles, and we must rely on this brilliance to move forward and build the future."@en1
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