Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-14-Speech-3-137"
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"en.20030514.7.3-137"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased that we are holding this debate in the European Parliament today, because the issue of Europe's external borders is one that we really have to tackle. The question we have to address politically speaking, and which we are currently examining in the Convention, is how far European integration can go. What is the bond that links us together politically and encourages us to take joint political action? Geography is another issue that we need to discuss. What are the geographical limits to a Europe that is willing to cooperate within this political union? And that leads on to this question: how are we to work with our neighbours beyond this closely cooperating Europe?
I would accordingly like to thank the Commission and the Council for having addressed in their paper and in today's debate something that Europe urgently needs: a wide-ranging public debate on this very issue, the geographical expansion of Europe, not of the continent of Europe, but of close political cooperation within the European Union. We will also have to stop thinking in black and white terms, as if relations can only take two forms – non-membership or full membership. It would be the worst possible mistake if that were the signal we were sending out. Europe has at its disposal a broad panoply of individual forms of cooperation. I myself come from a constituency that will continue to border on a non-Member State, namely Switzerland. In this case we have found a variety of solutions, including legal solutions based on agreements and cooperation arrangements through integration and specific European programmes. This is a perfect example of how the interests of a particular country – Switzerland – and of the EU can be reconciled without simply saying, ‘you either remain on the outside or you become a full member’. So we should focus once again on achieving this broad panoply of means of cooperating with our neighbours without constantly having discussions about ever more countries joining the European Union.
We also need to ask ourselves what the limits are to Europe's capacity for integration. If we are to discuss the question of political boundaries, of political responsibility, then we also need to consider who can tread this path alongside us. A European Union that ultimately degenerates into an enormous free trade area is not the model I am committed to, and I think that my fellow Members feel the same way.
I also expect these debates to be held in public and not in the Council, essentially at the meetings of Heads of State and Government, which discussed Turkey's accession in less than three minutes. That is no way to deal with issues of this kind. We need to listen to people here, and that must be the signal that goes out from Strasbourg today. We must take the public with us, and if they are ready to go down this road with us, we should work together politically to make it happen."@en1
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