Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-26-Speech-3-048"
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"en.20060426.10.3-048"2
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".
Mr President, assuming that my time is limited, I will launch straight into what I have to say. Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have lost count of the number of debates we have devoted to Romania and Bulgaria over the past 12 months. The large number seems to testify to this House’s eagerness to show the EU’s citizens that we share their scepticism and concern about the enlargement.
This debate is ostensibly based on an oral question put to the Commission by the Committee on Foreign Affairs and comprising a number of questions along with direct and/or indirect suggestions. The text of this oral question has found its way into the Romanian and Bulgarian press and into
and has been the cause of great concern in Romania and Bulgaria. That is why we have taken the liberty of giving a quite clear response to it even before this debate, but I notice that Mr Brok has no interest in my reaction as he has now left the Chamber.
The response I would like to give to this oral question is twofold, in that I would like to cover both the substance and the procedure. With regard to the procedure, I can only regret once more the fact that neither I nor the group had been consulted about the text. We would have been able to make it clear that the designation of – and I quote – ‘a close monitoring system’ is something we emphatically reject, because for many Members of this House, it smacks too much of Romania and Bulgaria being under guardianship, and hence, of discrimination between the Member States, with which we want nothing to do. I would add that neither Mr Brok, Mr Moscovici, nor Mr Van Orden have used the words ‘a close monitoring system’; they are only on paper.
In principle, I would repeat what I have said before on behalf of our group during the meeting behind closed doors of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. An overwhelming majority of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe takes the view that Romania and Bulgaria should be able to accede on 1 January 2007 and only if there were serious, fact-based shortcomings, would we agree to special safeguard measures being promulgated, which, in our view, cannot be decided upon until the autumn.
Finally, there is something I would ask my fellow MEPs to consider. It is not a good thing, in the run-up to a debate, to make sceptical noises about the enlargement out of a desire to meet our citizens halfway in their concern, and then to say that we agree to the accession on 1 January 2007 after all. We think that too much damage has already been done to the enlargement project. We therefore hope that all of this will end well and that Commissioner Rehn will suggest the date of 1 January 2007 to his colleagues, so that we can give that a joyful welcome during the June debate. Thank you for your attention."@en1
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