Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-16-Speech-3-060"
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"en.20080116.2.3-060"2
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"Mr President, the Slovenian Presidency is very fortunate to be following on from two successful presidencies. Slovenia is also the first of the 12 new Member States to take on the Presidency, and this makes its responsibility all the greater.
The Slovenian Presidency’s programme undoubtedly contains worthy elements. For my part, however, I believe that greater weight ought to have been given to the attempt to achieve greater understanding and acceptance by the public both of the Reform Treaty and of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Slovenian Presidency supports the plans for the accession of the Western Balkan States. This is also the position of my delegation, but, as experience has taught us, it should be borne in mind that the premature setting of the date for the commencement of accession negotiations can lead to deadlock. We should also very seriously consider that the overwhelming weight of European public opinion appears to be particularly cautious about any further expansion, and this is something that we cannot ignore.
We must all be particularly careful on the subject of Kosovo. We should realise that a power game is being played in the region. On the one hand, US policy seeks to fully control the whole region, while Russia for its part wants to maintain contact with a region with which traditionally and for centuries it has maintained special relations. In this game Kosovo is like a ping-pong ball.
At the recent Summit Meeting the European leaders did not take a decision on whether they would recognise a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo. Let us hope that we shall all weigh up the dangers inherent in unilateral recognition and act with particular care, because unsuccessful manoeuvres might set off chain reactions in the wider region, with unforeseen consequences."@en1
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