Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-14-Speech-3-235"
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"en.20030514.15.3-235"2
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"Colleagues, it gives me great pleasure today to welcome Mr Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of the Republic of Poland.
I recall a famous poster, as I think we all do, from the streets of Prague in November 1989, that read: Poland – 10 years, Hungary – 10 months, GDR – 10 weeks, Czechoslovakia – 10 days. That started in a shipyard in Poland.
We also recall that other distinguished Polish compatriot of yours, Karol Wojtyla – His Holiness Pope John Paul II – when he spoke to the Polish Parliament in 1999 he remarked that Poland had a full right to take part in the process of progress and world development, especially European development. He supported Poland's integration into Europe, as we do in this House today.
Mr President, I would like to salute your leadership. Some weeks ago, with Commissioner Verheugen, I had the privilege of attending the launch in Warsaw of your presidential campaign in respect of the upcoming referendum in Poland. I know that you have an extensive personal travel schedule right throughout your country. You have visited citizens in Plock and Gorzow, and yesterday
despite an extraordinary storm, in Bialystok. Even today we laid on some rain here to make you feel at home.
I know that your campaign will take you to many more places and you will bring your message and your vision to those places. Your vision of Poland in Europe, your vision of central Europe returning to Europe and the wider world, your relationship with your old neighbours – such as the Ukraine and others who have become our new neighbours - these things mean you can help us to develop our eastern dimension perspectives.
You have my sincere wishes for the work of leadership which you bring to Poland at this defining moment. It is my hope that your compatriots will seize this historic moment and that they will take their lead from your campaign and say
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Especially in the context of this week here in Strasbourg, a week when we in the European Parliament begin a process of pre-integrating our political colleagues and friends from the accession states through the observer process. We have observers here today from the parliaments of the accession states and, of course, observers from the Sjem and the Senate in Poland.
I am very pleased also that we can welcome you here today, Mr President, to acknowledge the role which your country has played in bringing all of us in Europe to this point in our integration and re-integration. I also pay tribute to you personally for the role you have played in the transformation and transition in the Republic of Poland.
From this platform, I should like through you to send a message to the people of Poland. Here in this House, on 9 April 2003, we voted on the accession treaties. We said, on behalf of the 360 million European Union citizens that we represent, 'yes' to Poland by more than 90%. That is a message we want you to carry from Strasbourg to your people in Poland.
May I also recall that in the early 1980s this House also displayed its solidarity with your new awakening by creating a group of Friends of Poland
. That act of solidarity represented even then the depth and the continuity of the interest which this House has in your republic.
We look forward to Poland joining the European Union next year. 1 May 2004 will mark the end of a long road. For all of us, that road started in the shipyards of Gdansk in the middle of August 1980. We are conscious today of how much we owe you, the Polish people, for opening this new chapter for Europe and, indeed, of the Polish tradition borne out by that chapter of fighting ‘for freedom, yours and ours’. We think also of the common identity that our histories combine to bring us: Westerplatte, Katyn, the two Warsaw uprisings are important pages in our common history.
Your compatriots, led by Lech Walesa, set this peaceful revolution in train."@en1
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"'tak dla Polski'"1
"Amici Poloniae"1
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