Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-14-Speech-3-283"
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"Mr President, Commissioner, whom I would particularly like to applaud for dedicating so much of your time, work, effort and enthusiasm to developing and implementing the European Neighbourhood Policy. I acknowledge all that commitment, work and effort and must applaud you for it.
I would now like to refer to the strengthening of the ENP. As you know, one of the key aspects of the strengthened ENP is to make best use of the Union’s financial weight. The increase in funding for partners under the new European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument is already a sign of the Union’s enhanced commitment. To encourage reforms even further, a governance facility has been created based on objective and transparent allocation criteria. Funding will be allocated via this facility for the first time this autumn. Work is also progressing on the establishment of the ENP investment facility, which is intended to improve the impact of the Union’s budgetary contributions and to help to mobilise major donor resources. This new mechanism will be fully compatible with existing financial instruments, particularly the Euro-Mediterranean investment and partnership facility.
In order to further encourage and support regulatory and administrative reform and institution-building, we aim to open up Community agencies and programmes to ENP countries through a gradual approach. Some progress has already been made in this area. The Commission is negotiating the necessary protocols on the general principles for participation in these new Community programmes with the first group of ENP partners. Israel, Morocco and the Ukraine are likely to be the first countries to benefit from this measure.
I would like to conclude with some remarks on what we consider to be the key elements of the strengthened ENP. First and foremost, one of its essential components is increased economic integration, which must be achieved in particular by the gradual adoption of comprehensive free trade agreements. The opening of negotiations on such agreements, however, must be preceded by the accession of partner countries to the WTO.
It is also essential to facilitate mobility for certain categories of people between the partner countries and the EU. As a clear and tangible sign of the Union’s openness to its neighbours and in line with its common approach on visa facilitation, we concluded visa facilitation and readmission agreements with Ukraine and Moldova. We will also discuss visa facilitation for certain groups of people from Eastern Europe so that they can participate in ENP-related events, building on equivalent measures that have been applied for groups of citizens from the Euro-Med countries since 2003.
Finally, I would like to refer to the commitment we recently assumed in relation to the Black Sea and countries in that region. The Black Sea Synergy initiative aims to strengthen cooperation among the countries of the region and deepen the EU’s relations with it at all levels. In general terms, the European Neighbourhood Policy is in the interests of both the Union and the partner countries. It is now time to make it a more attractive, effective and credible policy that guarantees security and prosperity for all.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Neighbourhood Policy, to which from now on I will refer simply as ENP, is an essential policy for the EU.
The ENP is a fundamental element of the architecture of the Union’s relations with the ring of states surrounding it. Stability, security and development are interconnected processes. Relations between the Union and its neighbours must be strengthened, both to the East and to the South, so that the ENP provides a global, single, inclusive, balanced and coherent policy framework. Despite the specific nature and individuality of each country and each society, common interests and challenges exist that must be faced together.
The fact that we are strengthening the ENP is first of all evidence of the merits of this policy. We are concerned only with strengthening and deepening policies that have been successful. We all acknowledge, however, that we must continue to reinforce and strengthen the ENP. Since the Commission presented its proposals at the end of last year, Member States have reached a broad consensus on the need to strengthen the ENP and the measures required to do so. In this context, on the Council’s behalf I would like to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Tannock and Mr Obiols i Germà, for their excellent and exhaustive report.
Parliament’s opinions are particularly important and valuable, especially for implementing the strengthened European Neighbourhood Policy, and will be taken into account as we go forward. As you know, the German Presidency presented an interim report on strengthening the ENP that was endorsed by the Council and by the European Council last June. The June Council also adopted conclusions reiterating the main principles of the ENP. Firstly, the ENP consolidates a strategy based on partnership and cooperation. Our objective is to help our neighbours to modernise and to reform. For this purpose and to ensure that the strengthened ENP is effective, it must be followed by all the member countries as part of a privileged partnership with a view to achieving the necessary reforms. The imposition from Brussels of a calendar of reforms is certainly not the best way to obtain results, which is why we have listened to what the partner countries want from the strengthened ENP.
Secondly, it is a global, single, inclusive, balanced and coherent policy framework. The Member States agree that the offer of intensified relations applies to all partner countries, while maintaining an overall balance between the East and the South.
Thirdly, the aspects of differentiation set out according to the performance and assistance per measure continue to be essential in the EU's relations with neighbouring states. The ENP’s policy framework obviously needs to remain sufficiently flexible to take into account the needs of each partner and the extent to which they effectively and visibly make and are prepared to make progress on the reform track. EU support should therefore be tailored even more to the needs of partners and their priorities as set out in the ENP action plans.
Finally, the European Neighbourhood Policy remains distinct from the process of enlargement and does not prejudge any possible future developments in partner countries’ relationships with the EU. Participation in the ENP in itself makes it possible to bolster national transformation processes in the interests of our partners’ citizens, independently of an EU accession perspective. We must therefore be cautious and not amalgamate two things which are different.
Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union provides that any European State which respects the principles of the rule of law, freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms may apply to become a member of the Union. Any application for accession will be examined in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty."@en1
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