Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-264"
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"en.20060315.21.3-264"2
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".
Mr President, I am grateful for this exciting and certainly tense debate, which the Council, too, will regard as important.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am from a country that, according to all the figures and data available, benefited very considerably from the last enlargement, yet, even so, the popular view of both the European Union itself and its enlargement is a very critical one, so let me make a few personal observations on the subject.
There will be no Europe without frontiers;
yet Europe was always a political project. That is why neither geographers nor historians nor rulers will be any use to us in the political decisions that we have to take; what will decide the issues will be the common will of those who share in this community of values and laws, namely us and – as is the norm in democracies – the people themselves. Where, then, do we stand now? Looked at objectively, 3 October last year saw the taking of political decisions with far-reaching implications; what is ahead of us now – ‘us’ being the Council and the Commission with our partners around the world – is a period of quietly working on the issues.
Let me just make three more comments on the geographical issues in the Balkans: what is this, in essence, all about? What are we working on? I believe we are working on Europe as a peace project, on its reunification, on the overcoming of the East/West divide, on doing away with the division created by Communism. It is intolerable that the Balkans should end up in some European no man's land; we must again spell out where we see the added value for ourselves, for our own people, and for the peoples of the Balkans an added value made up of the rule of law, of security and of economic opportunity.
If I may turn to Turkey, to which many Members made reference, in the currently ongoing process, the Commission and the Council are addressing not only the progress Turkey has made with its reform process, but also, and quite specifically and directly, what remains to be done in such areas as religious freedom and the free expression of opinion. We did this in our troika meeting.
Let me say something about Ukraine. Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner and I were recently on a troika mission in Ukraine together, and I can give you the same message that I gave there: it is that Europe, the European Union, would like to see a stable, self-confident and successful Ukraine, but, above all, a Ukraine that faces up to the task of transformation and tackles it with determination. The European Neighbourhood Policy and the action plan that is about to be reviewed for the first time during the Austrian Presidency provide us with a good and appropriate array of instruments. There is also considerable potential for such things as a deeper agreement that might well include a broad-based free trade agreement."@en1
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"‘L’Europe sans frontières n’existera pas’ –"1
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