Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-04-Speech-3-045"
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"en.20021204.3.3-045"2
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"Mr President, for the record, my name is pronounced van Velzen. I should like to say that we are currently facing an historic moment. Indeed, we are at the final stage of negotiations and I think that the package that is being prepared by the Danish Presidency, consisting of a number of key components on the subjects of agriculture, nuclear safety and border control, is, of course, one that is certain to appeal to our citizens in the European Union as well.
I have no option but to conclude from the Commission report that the Member States wishing to accede still have to sort out an awful lot of things. I also think that we should expressly mention this in Copenhagen, so that our citizens know what the newly-acceding Member States are up against in the coming year and a half. Another area of concern to which more attention should be given is media pluralism in Central and Eastern Europe.
The past has shown us all that, let us say, the old establishment set aside resources and created opportunities in order to keep their own media intact. In this area too, I think we could ask the Commission to devote more attention to the actual – that is the factual rather than theoretical – diversity of the media in Central and Eastern European countries.
I also think that we should not combine enlargement with the debate on Turkey. If we do engage in such a discussion at present, we would of course be flouting our own laws and rules, as Mr Poettering has already pointed out. Looking at the facts and the Commission's report – and I was in this respect pleased with Commissioner Verheugen's speech – we simply have to conclude that although Turkey has made a great deal of progress, it still fails to meet the Copenhagen criteria on all counts. This is why we are, actually, in a kind of virtual debate and are doing silly things to boot. We like to mention a date for the sake of naming the date. Good luck to anyone who can explain this to citizens in the European Union. I am therefore in favour of abandoning this curious debate. We cannot get away from Turkey's need to meet the Copenhagen criteria, and the fact that it does not do so at the moment. Consequently, we should stop wasting any more time on this. Imagine if Member States were to set dates at this stage which are at the moment not based on fact.
On the subject of agriculture, there is something that is still a factor for me, namely the huge differences existing between the new acceding countries, between Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary for example. I wonder whether we should not concentrate on making the package more tailor-made. The Danish Presidency has set a good example in this.
Surely, farming in Poland with less than one and a half acres is mainly a social problem, one that should be dealt with in Poland, and the European Union might well be able to play a major role in this. Farmers with up to 8, 9, 10 hectares will mainly need help in the form of world development programmes, which is quite different from extensive discussions about quotas and so on, as these mainly apply to the far bigger agricultural areas in Poland. I would therefore call for more attention to be given to this area, and it would surely be extremely sad if Poland and the Polish Government were to be prevented from striking an agreement simply by our inability to offer a somewhat more targeted programme and, above all, to allow the Polish Government to develop a somewhat more targeted programme for their own farmers. I would therefore urge some sort of creativity in this area.
With regard to the new Member States, everyone is agreed, of course, that we need to set up a system where there is no room for net contributors. However, we should also consider how we can speed up the cash flow so that these Member States do not end up having major problems.
Let me conclude by saying this: we have an enormous opportunity in Copenhagen, and we should seize it."@en1
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