Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-12-13-Speech-3-019"
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"en.20061213.4.3-019"2
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".
Mr President, in the early 90s, enlargement was declared as one of the EU’s key objectives. Europe, which was previously shared between three economic blocs, had to make haste in being reunited within the European Union. Subsequently, the plan for a limited initial enlargement round – in which Estonia, the Czech Republic and Cyprus were included, but Latvia, Slovakia and Malta were not – was suddenly abandoned in favour of a major enlargement round. In this, Romania and Bulgaria, although they will be Members in three weeks’ time, brought up the rear.
Following the pledge that all Balkan states that have not yet joined are also welcome, after the slow start of negotiations with Croatia and Turkey and following short-lived enthusiasm about a possible quick accession procedure involving Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus, it has become noticeably quiet. Negotiations with another candidate country, Macedonia, have not even actually got off the ground yet.
It now transpires that newcomers are no longer that welcome. Those in power fear that, without a constitution, it will become ever more difficult for the European Union to function properly, and ever more funds will need to be redistributed. The public at large are witnessing the phenomenon of labour migration, where people living far from home do the dirty and unsafe work and are badly paid and housed.
The adoption of the Services Directive has created the fear that sound social legislation and proper collective labour agreements in the old Member States will soon have to compete with inferior regulations that apply in new or future Member States. On account of both the neoliberal policy within the European Union and a lack of progress in the democratisation process and human rights in Turkey, further enalrgement is becoming extremely unpopular among the public in the current Member States.
These two failings have forced us to shift down a gear and to adopt temporary transitional measures. The danger of this is that states that are currently being rejected are meanwhile becoming ever more dependent on the European Union, something which can hinder them in their own choices and in their own development.
My group is in favour, not least in transitional periods too, of the equivalence of the potential acceding countries being respected and financial support being given, thus allowing them to catch up, also with a view to making their future accession easier. We owe it to the many residents of our Member States who hail from the former Yugoslavia and Turkey to take seriously those regions’ desire for accession."@en1
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