Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-16-Speech-2-225"
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"en.20081216.31.2-225"2
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"Mr President, this has been an important Presidency, not because, as President Sarkozy said, there are large countries and small countries, but because President Sarkozy was personally able to meet the challenges.
The French Presidency has not had an easy time of it; far from it. It has had the crisis in Georgia, the financial crisis and other problems to deal with, including the Treaty of Lisbon. All that has required a response and action, and that is the most difficult thing for any leadership. This leadership has been a confident one. The French Presidency has demonstrated its capacity to take such action, and this does it credit and is beneficial for the European Union.
I am going to bring up three points, aside from Georgia and the economic crisis: neighbourhood policy, climate policy, and security and defence policy. The neighbourhood policy has received a powerful impetus both in terms of its Mediterranean dimension, with the Union of the Mediterranean, and in terms of its eastern dimension, with the Eastern Partnership, which deserves as much attention as the southern dimension.
It was time to move beyond the stage of discussing neighbourhood policy and onto energetic action. We needed to give the citizens of those countries a strong signal of support for their efforts at reform and their ambitions for better lives. It is essential to consolidate peace, stability and good governance in the regions close to our borders. In fact, I would even say it is an indispensable ingredient in our project of integration.
On climate and energy, I would just like to thank the French Presidency for its empathy and understanding with regard to the sensitivities of the new Member States.
The third subject area dealt with by the Presidency and the Council was the strengthening of security and defence policy, in particular through a significant improvement in civil and military capabilities, and in that sphere I would like to offer my congratulations.
To conclude, knowing how to do things is a question of providing oneself with the resources. That is the challenge of the presidency and of the summit. Whether we are working on the climate and energy package, economic recovery or security policy, however, we must all apply ourselves in a coordinated way to these efforts, and ‘we’ means both the institutions and citizens."@en1
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