Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-06-Speech-3-069"
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"en.20021106.6.3-069"2
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".
Mr President, I will be very brief, for the Danish Prime Minister has given an exhaustive illustration of the key points of today’s debate and I fully agree with what he has said.
I would just like to make a general comment regarding some of the points raised. It is interesting to see that the entire House – like the Council – is in agreement on enlargement. The debates and questions have focused on minor issues and on the progress we need to make on these issues in the future. This kind of consensus really is extremely rare.
I would like to mention a number of points which have not been addressed in the other replies. The first is the point raised by Mr Swoboda concerning the Balkans. I fully agree: we did not spend a great deal of time talking about the Balkans, but our policy of association and stabilisation processes and ongoing relations and assistance is part of a strategy for achieving a long-term goal precisely of making the Balkans part of the Union too. It will take time and, above all, the process will differ from country to country – close monitoring of these countries has shown that some move faster than others – but the Balkans are becoming increasingly our responsibility, and we are aware of this and taking appropriate action.
As regards Turkey, I have nothing to add, apart from a consideration which I feel I must point out to the House. We based our report on practical criteria. In this respect, the change in government does not introduce any new factors because we will have to see what practical measures it takes to implement the Copenhagen criteria. The Commission report is very specific and very clear on this point and the position we take must therefore be consistent with it.
I have no comment to make on the subject of Kaliningrad, other than to say that we will respect the position of Lithuania and its rights as a new Member of the Union. All our work, including the difficult negotiations, has taken such a long time precisely because of the need to respect these principles.
Chechnya has been mentioned by a large number of speakers today. Although Chechnya is not part of the subject of this debate, I do feel that the question is closely related to the issues we are discussing. The Commission vehemently and unequivocally condemns all terrorist acts, starting with the tragic incident of the hostages in the Moscow theatre. It affirms equally explicitly that the fight against terrorism cannot be pursued at the expense of human rights. This applies to Chechnya, where our human rights agencies working
are constantly reporting incidents of failure to respect human rights and violation of human rights by both Russian military operators and Chechen rebels. In my view, the best way to prevent further violation of human rights is to pursue the investigations currently being performed by the Russian military and civil prosecutors who have undertaken to carry out these inquiries. There is also a Russian undertaking to take certain steps to improve human rights in Chechnya, which include reducing the number of troops present, putting an end to what are known as round-ups and, as I said before, allowing prosecutors to observe military operations. There have been countless statements made to this effect and we must ensure that this, at least, does happen.
Then there is a further matter in which the Commission is directly involved and that is the provision of humanitarian aid to the people of that country, who have to endure the suffering and problems caused by the difficult living conditions. Furthermore, two NGO workers – one European and one local – who were taken prisoner some weeks ago, have still not been released. We are pushing for urgent resolution of this matter. Lastly, we must constantly and insistently make it clear that a political solution is the only way to resolve the Chechen question. This is our message, the stance we will adopt at the bilateral meeting with the Russian authorities in Brussels. As I said before, political dialogue is the only way forward. Otherwise, there will be no end to this conflict.
My final point concerns the CAP, which has been mentioned a number of times with comments being made which are not consistent with what was decided at Brussels. After Brussels, the reform of the CAP is still on the table. Moreover, Commissioner Fischler is going to take part in a debate on the matter in this very Chamber. I am not going to go into details but I can assure you that the Commission is working long and hard on pursuing its recent proposal."@en1
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