Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-25-Speech-3-057"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070425.3.3-057"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking my fellow-Members, especially those on the Committee for Foreign Affairs, for their really very good and fruitful cooperation.
I would also like to thank all the Croatian representatives, who have given a very great deal of help in preparing their country’s way as it draws nearer to the European Union – its ambassador to the EU, the principal negotiator, its foreign minister, and, above all, the country’s Prime Minister, Mr Sanader, who did a great deal in the last few years of his term of office to move the negotiations forward, but I also want to thank the former Prime Minister Mr Račan, who is a personal friend of mine, and, regrettably, very seriously ill. It was he who started to do what had to be done to prepare the way for Croatia to move closer to the European Union. All these people are not merely Croatian figures, but European ones, for they are helping to make it possible for the whole region of South-Eastern Europe to enter the European Union once the relevant criteria have been met.
There are those who have asked me whether I am not perhaps too friendly to Croatia. I do indeed have very strong emotional ties to the country, but I can also see the things about it that are worthy of criticism and still have to be sorted out, and so I am against the idea that some of the points of criticism made in this report should simply be deleted. Let us be honest with Croatia. Covering things up will not help them, but drawing attention to the outstanding issues will.
Although a great deal has already been got underway, some reforms have still not yet been implemented, and I am thinking here not only of those needed in the administration of justice, but also of economic reforms. I hope that these reforms will make progress despite the elections that are being held today, and I rejoice in the fact that Croatia is cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague. Achieving that was a major step forward, and, while I wish its neighbour Serbia would do likewise, this work must nonetheless be proceeded with in the immediate future.
Another matter that remains to be completed is the return of refugees. When you learn that some villages are still without water or electricity, you understand why returning home is not exactly an attractive prospect for refugees, and so there is plenty left to do on this front.
There are still problems with borders. It is not surprising that borders were not laid down with 100% certainty following the collapse of Yugoslavia, and the best way of solving these problems lies in a bilateral approach, which, in other words, means that Croatia would arrive at different solutions with each of its neighbours, but, if things cannot be sorted out in that way with one country or another, third parties should be brought in who are capable of mediating, adjudicating, and resolving issues in a European manner – not as if there were principles at stake, but treating the issues in practical, economic and political terms.
In my report, I made the quite deliberate point that Croatia should pull out all the stops in order to be able to conclude negotiations by 2008, so that this House can give its agreement in principle before the European Parliamentary elections in June 2009, and I do not doubt that the question as to whether we will be able to do that out of real conviction is one that it is primarily for Croatia to answer.
Croatian politicians on both the government and opposition sides know that it is, nowadays, becoming more and more difficult to get agreement to enlargement, to new Member States, since a certain amount of ‘enlargement fatigue’ has of course set in, but we have to be honest and upright about this, for we said, in the course of the Thessaloniki process, that, if countries have complied with the Copenhagen criteria and are cooperating with the International Criminal Tribunal, they, too, are entitled to membership. Croatia’s membership could send the right signal to the other countries; not a message to the effect that they could become members automatically or that it would be easier for them to do so, but they would be able to see that it is possible for a country to join the European Union if it does its homework. None of us can have an interest in creating a black hole in this region.
We are firmly committed to the idea that the European Union, too, must do its homework and set in motion the necessary institutional reforms in order to complete the constitutional process, and I can do no other than repeat what Mr Schulz told Chancellor Merkel in his last speech in Brussels, namely that the Council and the Commission must do everything in their power to get this process completed contemporaneously with, and in parallel with, the negotiations with Croatia, so that Croatia will be enabled to become a Member State of the European Union rather than finding the door slammed in its face. We must not treat the deepening of the European Union, the reform of its institutions, as something that can be dispensed with; the two should go together, so that we will then be able to welcome Croatia as a new Member State of a strengthened European Union."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples