Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-11-19-Speech-3-170"
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"en.20031119.7.3-170"2
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".
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has already informed Parliament in detail about the strategy and individual elements of the neighbourhood concept. I do not want to repeat that today but rather to report to you on what has happened in the meantime. Our neighbours have welcomed this initiative, all of them in fact: our East European neighbours, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and our Mediterranean neighbours. We are already in more or less intensive contact with all of them with a view to achieving this initiative’s objective.
The aim is to exhaust the potential for cooperation as much as possible while stopping short of membership, specifically in the field of economic cooperation, which we interpret very widely. I must make clear to you that the Commission’s ideas for the long term extend far beyond the idea of a free trade area. We envisage being able to incorporate individual countries fully into our system of economic integration, including the four freedoms: movement of capital, movement of goods, movement of services and movement of persons. That will not happen with every country simultaneously. For some it will take longer than others, but I am confident that ultimately we really will have this large common economic area with more than a billion people and the European Union at the centre.
It is not just about economics, it is about the environment, it is about cooperation in domestic and legal policy for joint defence against dangers and threats and it is of course in return also about developing political, economic and social reforms in the countries with which we operate this strategy. We are also expecting something from these countries. We are not in a position to be only giving all the time, but we would like in return political and economic reforms, democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and protection for minorities, so that the whole area around us can achieve the same level of political and economic stability, and one day also prosperity, as the European Union itself.
I will say very precisely why. Because we would be greatly deceiving ourselves if we believed that things can go well for us in the European Union in the long term if they do not go well for our neighbours. It is therefore in our own interests to ensure that our neighbours can open up. As I said, responses have been positive. In Russia I spoke about it with the president, the foreign minister and many members of the government, the same in Ukraine, I have spoken with a number of foreign ministers from the Mediterranean countries and I will be visiting all of those countries before the middle of next year. The Commission will be presenting concrete action plans for a whole number of countries to the Council by the middle of next year; compared with previous strategies, these will have the advantage of being joint action plans, negotiated documents, which we intend to implement jointly. In that regard it has therefore begun quite well.
The Commission is also already working on the development of a financial instrument with which we shall also be able to underpin this neighbourhood strategy financially after 2006. We shall after all have to be able to provide financial support for cross-border cooperation between our new Members and our new neighbours on the one hand and among the new neighbours on the other.
I am very grateful to Mrs Napoletano for her report. We are on the same wavelength. I do still have concerns about one point, Mrs Napoletano, and I would ask you to think again whether it is really wise to say that Turkey and the western Balkan countries should be included in this initiative. With regard to Turkey, I would like to say that Turkey would consider it an extraordinarily negative signal. It would regard it as a downgrading if we were to say that a country which we are currently preparing for commencement of accession negotiations is now included in an initiative expressly intended for countries to which we have not extended any prospect of membership. I must make that quite clear. The countries included in this initiative are not considered prospective members, at least not for the foreseeable future, and in Turkey’s case that would provoke an extraordinarily negative reaction and, Mrs Napoletano, would even endanger the reform process in Turkey. I know you well enough to know that you certainly do not want our policy to halt the positive human rights developments in Turkey. So please think this point over again.
As to how we should proceed, we agree that it is important that we should make clear to the public and to our neighbours what we can and what we cannot do. We can ensure that enlargement does not create any new borders in Europe. It would not help us at all to re-erect the iron curtain just a few hundred kilometres further east. Neither would it help us, when the Mediterranean countries of Malta and Cyprus have joined the Union, to cut ourselves off from the countries of the southern Mediterranean. We must offer as much cooperation as we can manage in the foreseeable future. But we must also make clear, especially to Russia and Ukraine, that no doors are being closed here, that no unalterable decisions are being taken, but rather that a process is being set in motion which at some point will reach its goal. Then it will be possible without more ado to set ourselves new objectives and reach out towards new horizons.
At any rate, I think it is very good – and I think we can be proud of it – that we now have an idea, perhaps for the very first time, of the political shape we want to give to Europe and its neighbourhood in the years ahead, that for the first time we have a clear strategic vision of what Europe is to look like and how it is to interact with its neighbours. That at any rate is a great step forward. I am extremely grateful to Parliament for being willing to go the way the Commission has proposed."@en1
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