Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-06-12-Speech-3-149"
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"en.20020612.5.3-149"2
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"Mr President, I would like to thank the Council for the diligent way it has pursued this complicated dossier and most especially Commissioner Verheugen and his staff for the phenomenal amount of work they have done on monitoring the progress that has been achieved in the candidate countries. This has actually brought us to this debate here today. Without that effort, we simply would not be in this situation now.
We, and the people in the gallery here, ought to be more passionate and expectant about the enlargement of the European Union because it is a historical goal which we can all be justly proud of. We need to reintroduce that element so that from Galway to Gdansk and beyond we secure that reunited continent.
In 1990, Helmut Kohl and François Mitterand made a promise that we would have the enlargement of the European Union completed by the year 2000. We are failing singularly to do that. The finishing line is in sight, this time it is in Copenhagen. It is not Paris, but let us keep the
together. There are many candidate countries that would like to be wearing that
I think they are all wearing them. The important thing is to make sure we get to Copenhagen as a finishing line, not just another stage on our route to the successful completion of enlargement.
On 6 July 2002 a very famous world sporting event will start. I refer not to the World Cup, the final of which will have been contested between England and Ireland long before 6 July, but to the
. In many ways the enlargement of the European Union is comparable to the
. If we were to look at ourselves now we would find ourselves at the last climb, in the mountains, with most of the gruelling race behind us and very much with the finishing line in sight, with the Champs Elysées in Paris waiting for us. We have some tough and difficult climbs to get through at the moment.
As anyone who has been on a bicycle knows: if you stop, it falls over. So now is not the time to stop. We have to keep moving forward. The message from my group is very clear, we must keep following that road map. It is a good road map and it will get us through this process. We must stick to the timescale that we have set ourselves.
My esteemed colleague, Klaus Hänsch, first raised in this House the date of 2004 as the date for the completion of the first new accession and we must stick to that date. We must allow no new conditions to be introduced. Questions of history are important but questions of history are exactly that, historical questions. Britain and Ireland joined the European Union at the same time, yet the Irish constitution at that time had a claim over British territory. That did not stop us joining this club together. Britain and Spain are still trying to resolve the question of Gibraltar that has gone on for three centuries. These are important historical issues but they are not conditions for accession to the European Union.
Those who use issues of history to try and create new obstacles on our road to the accession of new Member States of the European Union must appreciate the damage that they are doing to public opinion. I was in Prague recently where there has been a 6% fall in public support for joining the European Union just as a result of the debate over the Beneš decrees.
Both the Commission and the Parliament are doing their work. We will rigorously assess the case of each individual country to make sure that the tough questions are answered and that we do not shirk our responsibilities. When we say we agree to a new country joining, we will have done all the hard work so that our citizens can be assured that this is a safe accession that we can all agree to.
While I appreciate the work that has been done in the Council, I have to say there is a great worry within this Parliament that it may now be the Council that is starting to drag its feet. The Council often talks a good fight on many issues but sadly, in our experience it is often the Council that finds it the most difficult to take the final decisions.
While we understand and appreciate that many issues we tackle over the next few months will be very difficult, please do not let us delay. Do not try and negotiate, or re-negotiate, the common agricultural policy in the space of two or three months to get us to October and the Brussels Summit. Do not allow the xenophobes and the anti-Europeans to slow us down. And, for heaven's sake, do not let us turn around and start blaming you for not actually getting to 2004 on time. Working together, we can achieve this but I have to say in all honesty that we have worries at the moment about when the Council is actually going to deliver on this.
My one disappointment about the enlargement process is that the passion has gone out of it. At the beginning of the 1990s, we were all passionate about enlarging the European Union, particularly in the accession states. It has now become some sort of pragmatic, technical exercise."@en1
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"maillot jaune"1
"peloton"1
"tour de France"1
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