Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-04-Speech-3-023-000"
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"en.20120704.3.3-023-000"2
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"Mr President, I too should like to take my turn in welcoming the Presidency of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Parliament. May I say that the stand taken by Mr Christofias on the programme that Cyprus intends to implement during its six-month Presidency is a progressive stand which highlights the important problems facing the Union, especially the serious economic crisis, to which it is taking a progressive and democratic approach.
This means, in short, that it does not accept that a policy of strict austerity is the only way out of the economic crisis; it also talks of combatting unemployment, in order to use growth to create a new fabric within the Union, which does indeed bode well for economic recovery and an end to the recession.
Secondly, it demonstrates respect for the Union principles of equality, democracy, solidarity and social cohesion, the very principles that have brought the President of the Republic of Cyprus here today as the President-in-Office of the entire European Union. Thus we are all fighting to establish a family of our own. We are all fighting for more Europe. That is the thrust of the policy expounded by the President of the Republic of Cyprus.
The President quite rightly did not mention the island’s specific problem, the Cyprus problem. However, it is a fact that dozens, if not hundreds, of visits by MEPs to the Republic of Cyprus see the reality today, see the divided capital, Nicosia, the only divided capital in the world. They see the strong presence of the Turkish occupying forces. The 45 000 strong Turkish occupying army there to ‘protect’ in inverted commas, a Turkish-Cypriot community of 100 000 people.
We more than anyone are fighting for the Turkish-Cypriot community, because we believe that it is through that community that we can resolve the Cyprus problem. By contrast, Turkey is not fighting for the Republic of Cyprus; it does not recognise, as we speak, the Presidency of the European Union itself. The only thing that concerns it to gradually colonise the island and change the demographic of the island. There are currently 700 000 colonists in the occupied areas. It would be a paradox and it is a paradox to have members of parliament and/or chairs of political groups, such as Mr Watson, approaching the Cyprus problem as if the Cypriots had caused it.
I shall close with an academic question: will Turkey’s path to accession remain unobstructed during the Cypriot Presidency?"@en1
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