Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-25-Speech-2-139"
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"en.20051025.20.2-139"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a subject on which the Commissioner and I do not always agree, but I have to say, in my capacity as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, that he is taking a very cooperative line with the House and is also available to the Committee whenever necessary. I would like to thank him for that, and also for what he has said about the procedure agreed with this House at the time of the ratification last spring, according to which Parliament is again consulted on the accession date before the Commission puts its decision to the Council.
We have to consider the progress these countries have made; they belong to the Group of Twelve, of which 10 have already become Member States, and so their eventual accession to the European Union is not a matter of doubt. The question is whether this is to happen, as the Treaties require, on 1 January 2007, or a year later, although there is the possibility of whole chapters being annulled up to three years after their accession if they are not implemented as they need to be.
I am sure that our rapporteurs, and also the Committee on Foreign Affairs, will, acting on this plenary’s behalf and in partnership with the Commission, apply the most exact judgment in determining whether the conditions are right for accession to take place on 1 January 2007. Today’s statement by the Commission is what I would describe as a ‘yellow card’. These countries are being given the chance to make up the time they lost as a result of their internal political circumstances, but reference has been made to desperately serious matters that give rise to grave cause for concern, such as, among others, these countries’ absorption capacity and the capacity of the internal market to operate. There are also questions touching upon the justice system, such as the fight against corruption, and also on the development of administration to enable the internal market to function, which is in these countries’ interests and also in the interests of the European Union.
Although accession is not conditional upon the Constitution being in place, the failure to ratify it has meant that there are problems with the constitutional process. These are additional problems that we cannot burden ourselves with if the conditions are not fulfilled, and, at any rate, issues that we will have to examine with a critical eye. There are also issues that have to do with corruption and organised crime, issues of internal security, the problems to which the Commission has referred in relation to the external borders, and these are issues that are very important indeed, not least in the eyes of the public.
If the European Union’s citizens are to see it as being capable of further development, it must be clear that there is nothing automatic about these things, but that, on the contrary, we are taking the examination of the conditions seriously and will act only after having done so, rather than out of political compliance. It is for this reason that we will, over the coming months, be addressing this issue with a very great deal of seriousness indeed.
While we do want these countries to become Member States of the European Union, we also have to create the conditions under which that can be a workable proposition, and it is for that reason that I, on behalf of my group, and perhaps also on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, would like to accept the Commission’s invitation to work very closely with it in order that the decision we take early next year may be the right one."@en1
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