Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-12-Speech-4-349-000"
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"en.20110512.31.4-349-000"2
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"Mr President, I am not often of one mind with Mr Maštálka, but today I am. Firstly, I would like to say that all the parties need to fight for democracy and the rule of law to finally prevail in Belarus. Secondly, I want to make the case for multilingualism. Like him, I come from a mini-Europe, the former Habsburg Empire, which was no bad thing in many regards, but which fell apart because the biggest linguistic group – namely mine, the German speakers – always insisted on everyone speaking German. That meant the end of a multinational community. Charles, I hold you in a very high regard, but we are here for multilingualism and precisely for the rights of the minor languages.
Turning to Belarus, I want to say that, 20 years ago, Croatia and Slovenia became free countries – I was there – and in the August, the Baltic States, Russia and Ukraine followed. Nobody would have thought that, 20 years later, there would still be a dictatorship in Europe. Unfortunately, there is not only one. There is Belarus, there is a trend towards a dictatorship in Russia, there is a sliding backwards in Ukraine and there are problems in Moldova and Transnistria. We need to see, therefore, quite simply, that our entire eastern neighbourhood is facing a threat to its freedom to varying degrees. We therefore need to be very clear, think strategically and make freedom and the rule of law the yardstick for our relations throughout our eastern neighbourhood, and particularly when it comes to Belarus."@en1
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