Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-13-Speech-1-117"
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"en.20041213.10.1-117"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin, as other Members of this House before me have done, by thanking Mr Eurlings for the balanced report that he has presented to us today. It is a report that, moreover, gives continuity to what was previously proposed by Mr Verheugen.
Like most of you, I have been witnessing for some time now a semantic debate between accession and privileged partnership. I am somewhat surprised by this debate, but it merely typifies the irrational and subjective nature of our relationship with Turkey. To my mind, the only questions that need to be asked are: ‘What have we done in the past?’ and ‘What must we do in the future?’ For more than 40 years now, European politicians from all sides and from all countries have been saying that Turkey belongs in Europe and that such continuity is a source of pride for both them and us.
There are those who feel, however, that, at the end of this long engagement, marriage is no longer on the agenda. The planned process is long, difficult and demanding, however, and requires responsibility and prudence; as such, Turkey has an obligation to provide us with the guarantees needed for accession to take place. The natural consequence, however, of the demands that we are making is accession. A privileged partnership will not encourage Turkey to accept such demands. We must firstly, therefore, be consistent with ourselves and with our previous commitments, so that everyone is treated equally.
As a non-religious person, I have no intention of upsetting any religion or creed. When the world speaks of the ‘clash of civilisations’, when the Bush Administration pits the forces of evil against the forces of good, when Muslim fundamentalists use any excuse to give sermons carrying a message of violence and exclusion, it would be dangerous for Europe to be swept along that route and to endorse such thinking.
Furthermore, I should like to reiterate all of the demands on women’s rights, union rights, human rights and the recognition of minorities, to which I would add the Armenian question and the recognition of the Republic of Cyprus. Nevertheless, raising those questions, crucially important though they may be to a Europe of values, cannot be a prerequisite for opening negotiations.
As a committed and progressive citizen, I do not see a world frozen in time, in which the situation as it is today would, as a matter of course, be the same in ten or fifteen years’ time. Such a view of politics does a disservice to the way in which human beings and societies evolve and to people’s intelligence and ability to live together. As regards the positive developments in Turkey in recent years, which have been driven by the will of the people, it would be a serious mistake to reject the opening of these negotiations.
As a federalist, I sometimes hope, I sometimes dream, of a politically-integrated Europe. The notion of a privileged partnership would be no more than a commercial super-partnership, which would be a triumph for ‘living alongside’ over ‘living together’ – the business-based concept of an unjust world. I personally hope ..."@en1
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