Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-215"
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"en.20060315.20.3-215"2
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".
Mr President, I crave your forgiveness for our late arrival. We have just had two traffic accidents to contend with, one on the road to the airport in Vienna and one on the road from Entzheim.
The Balkans are at the heart of Europe, and without them, European unification will be incomplete. We know that the road ahead of us will be a difficult one, but we are determined to go down it. We have decided to take a step-by-step approach to the work in hand, working through the issues one by one and resolving each of them in turn.
It is working on the European standards that is actually the core issue for each and every one of these countries. Yesterday, the Bosnian Prime Minister visited me in Vienna, and told me that what was crucial was not a date or a particular point in time in the course of development, but working together on European standards. Javier Solana, who has been keeping an eye on developments for a long time, describes what has been achieved since Thessaloniki in 2003 as a success story capable of being read on the agenda, and, more specifically on the order of business for the Salzburg meeting, since the issues with which this meeting concerned itself were issues of easier and improved trading arrangement, the fight against organised crime, young people and the facilitation of easier travel. We gave attention to the visa issue in view of the need to address the expectations that the people of these countries have of us. We also, though, have to make clear to them what options are open to us, and join with them in seeking, step by step, solutions to the problems that remain outstanding in this area and elsewhere.
There is no doubt about it: Europe is making a difference in this region, but we have also emphasised the responsibility that the countries concerned have for themselves, for in some of them, which have already been stabilised, we need to move on to their dynamic Europeanisation. As we proceed down that road, it must be made clear to them that they need the willingness to take the necessary action and demonstrate that quality that is described so well by the English term ‘ownership’.
We have stressed the need for regional cooperation, especially in view of the work being done on a regional free trade area, with a single free trade agreement, based on CEFTA, intended to replace 31 individual agreements. Speaking personally, I am very grateful to Commissioner Rehn and to the Commission as a whole for their commitment to this. The Council and the Commission are working on this hand in hand and side by side in the best sense of the word. I wish to thank the Commission for its communication at the end of January, and also for their willingness to join us in continuing to work towards the achievement of the goals set out in the Salzburg statement.
Continued work is also called for on the part of the ministers of the national government within their own remits, for it is they who, along with other things, will have to network with their partners in the Balkan states in addressing actual problems. The ministers of the interior, in particular, are highly committed to this and bear a great responsibility, for it is they and their cooperation that determine what practical headway can be made on important issues.
We also discussed the topic of the EU’s assimilation capacity and explored its implications. As you know, this is a topic that I brought into greater prominence last autumn, and I believe I was right to do so, for we are not seeking to put up an additional obstacle, but, essentially, to make us more aware of something that ought to be quite obvious, that being that it is not only the candidates for accession of whom homework is to be demanded, but the European Union itself also needs to do its own.
At this joint meeting, at a moment at which all of us were united around one table in Salzburg, we all had an experience that was not only disquieting but also, at the same time, gave us a sense of hopeful confidence: our deliberations were interrupted by news of the death of Slobodan Milošević, and there was a European symbolism in our being able, at such a moment, to work on our common European future.
Thank you for the opportunity to inform you about our informal, Gymnich-format, meeting of foreign ministers, which took place this weekend in Salzburg. This was primarily concerned with two subject areas, the first of which was the challenges to foreign policy currently facing us, notably the developments in the Middle East and the imminent elections in Belarus and Ukraine. The second day was devoted to the Balkans, the Thessaloniki agenda, its implementation and its future.
If you will permit me, I would like to discuss the Middle East first and then move on to the Balkans.
To the Middle East, then: this region is, following the elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council and in the run-up to the elections in Israel, in a transitional stage, one in which we have a very clear and consistent message to send to the future Palestinian Government, for we need to make clear what are our own fundamental principles, on the basis of which we are prepared for further cooperation. The fundamentals are perfectly clear and consist of three elements. We are calling upon them to abandon violence, to agree to negotiations – which means recognising the existing agreements – and to acknowledge Israel’s right to existence.
It is on this clear and consistent basis that our policy is developed, and on which we have launched an appeal to our partners in the Middle East. Hamas, in particular, will have to become aware of the fork in the road and come to a decision as to which path it wants to take in future. It must make clear which route it is going to take; we have spelled out what the conditions are, and in no respect has there been any change in them. We shall continue to support the Palestinian people, and also took the opportunity at ‘Gymnich’ to discuss what shape financial support might take in future. What is clear is that any such support must benefit the Palestinian people rather than being used for terrorism or for violence.
We are, then, with a great deal of attention, following developments, the efforts being made to put together a new Palestinian Government, and its future programme. Yesterday, President Mahmud Abbas and his delegation visited Vienna, where we had the chance to raise these issues with him. He and the interim government have our support in this difficult period, and I shall be happy to discuss events in closer detail if I get the opportunity to do so later on.
Turning to the Balkans, this issue was and is an important one for the Austrian Presidency, and I therefore regard the Gymnich meeting and its engagement with it as a message of encouragement, even in a dual sense of the term, addressed to the people of the states of the Western Balkans. The road they have to travel towards Europe and towards meeting European standards may well be a difficult one, but the journey is worth it, and on that road they have our good wishes and support.
It is also a sign to our own peoples, encouraging them in the belief that it is indeed possible to find solutions to difficult problems – even to the most difficult ones. I therefore see it as a sign of hope and confidence that we succeeded, in the Salzburg Declaration, in underlining and making visible the prospects that the Balkan states have of acceding to the European Union.
For it was important, particularly at a time when people are talking in terms of 'enlargement fatigue', that this signal should be sent out in order to give our partners a good idea of what to expect in view of the extremely difficult decisions that we will have to take in 2006. It was evident from the guest list for our Salzburg meeting just how much the path we shall take this year will demand of us, for our guests included Martti Ahtisaari, the UN special envoy to Kosovo, and his deputy Albert Rohan, and we were able to discuss with them the future of that region. We had also invited Christian Schwarz-Schilling, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina; Søren Jensen-Petersen, the head of UNMIK was present with his delegation, as was Ibrahim Rugova’s successor as President of Kosovo, Fatmir Sejdiu. I was also pleased that this segment of our Salzburg meeting managed to achieve something of a ‘first’ in the presence of Mr Brok, the chairman of your Foreign Affairs Committee, who took part in our discussions."@en1
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