Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-14-Speech-3-299"
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"en.20071114.33.3-299"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I am indeed astonished at the words of Mr Batten, who comes from the cosmopolitan United Kingdom and yet is spreading narrow-minded and xenophobic propaganda here with his false allegations. That has nothing to do with the proud tradition of his great country.
The neighbourhood policy has surely become the European Union’s main instrument of foreign policy now that we are entering more of a consolidation phase following the accession of twelve countries altogether. For this reason it is important that the instrument of the ENP is used in an appropriate and concentrated manner, and indeed this is clearly being done in some respects.
The neighbourhood policy also gives us a solid instrument for active involvement in matters relating to the conflict in the Middle East, as Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner indicated. I do believe the emergence of solutions in Georgia so soon after the outbreaks of tension, and the fact that fresh elections are to be held, are partly connected with the effects of the European perspective and the neighbourhood policy, and show that we are on the right track here. The policy gives us the means to look after our interests, to forge links, to serve the interests of our partners and to foster the development of human rights and democracy.
When we discuss Belarus in this context, Commissioner, I find it interesting how we are managing to find a suitable way to link the instruments for human rights and democracy in a situation in which the neighbourhood instrument cannot yet have the same impact. That is an important exercise, which we must repeat in the coming year.
We have here an eastern neighbourhood policy and a southern neighbourhood policy. Both are equally important, but the method need not always be the same, because the eastern neighbourhood policy also has this dimension of the European perspective, which means that there can be different starting points and, to a certain extent, different prospects too. A policy that has to do with association agreements, with partnership and cooperation agreements and with the objectives of getting a country such as Ukraine into the WTO and then creating a free-trade area – with steps towards that kind of development – seems to me to be a very important instrument of progress.
This is a policy of joint responsibility. It is not a matter of the Central European Member States alone looking eastward and the Southern Europeans looking southward; the whole European Community is responsible for both parts. For this reason, I have to say that I cannot accept proposals such as that for a Mediterranean Union. I would very much like to see people in Spain and France concerning themselves with Ukraine, and Swedes and Germans taking the same interest in Morocco. That, and not a new division of the European Union, must be our policy."@en1
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