Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-12-Speech-3-243"
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"en.20030312.6.3-243"2
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".
Thank you for your question. First of all, you said that we should consider registering these countries. If you mean the official prospects of these countries becoming candidates, and perhaps that is precisely what you meant, this has already been decided and is, I think, an important message. We have the ten new countries which will join at the signing ceremony in Athens on 16 April, we have the three candidate countries, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, and we hope to give the countries in the western Balkans the prospect of becoming candidates. So there is a clear commitment here, subject of course to compliance with requirements, by which I mean the Copenhagen criteria, important reform, good neighbourly relations and regional cooperation.
As far as the Caucasus is concerned, thank you for your kind words about the Greek ambassadors; it is true that they are well tuned to the needs of these specific countries. Of course, I represent the Fifteen here and I should like at this point to tell you that the Council has repeatedly discussed the question of candidate countries such as Turkey. We took a very important decision in Copenhagen about what you might call its new prospects and evaluation for 2004, so that negotiations can open once it meets the criteria. Of course, a serious debate is still under way and has not reached a conclusion about the borders of the European Union, about how far the Union should extend and which countries should, in fact, be allowed to join. The Council has not yet answered this question, so I am unable to give you an answer. But you have raised an important issue which will no doubt engage both the Council and the European Parliament for a long time to come."@en1
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