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President of the European Commission Avrupa Birliği Komisyonu Başkanı We are celebrating the Treaty of Accession. It enlarges our European Union to embrace 10 new Member States and another 75 million people. At the same time it paves the way for further accessions, in particular those of Romania and Bulgaria scheduled for 2007. Today, here at the Parthenon, the cradle of democracy, we call on our peoples and Parliaments to approve this Treaty sanctioning the peaceful, democratic unification of our continent. Today we can be rightly proud of what Europe has achieved since the first Treaty on coal and steel was signed: decades of peace, cooperation and friendship between our peoples, shared prosperity, an ever closer union among our countries, and the primacy of our values -- democracy, the rule of law, respect for minorities, tolerance and solidarity. Today we must thank the people in the ten countries that are joining the European Union. Long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, they demonstrated their desire to live in freedom and democracy alongside their fellow Europeans. We must thank them for the quiet revolution they have accomplished over the last twelve years, the way they have reformed their political systems, their economies, their administrations and justice systems. They deserve to join the European Union with their heads held high, proud of how far they have come, eager to share their enthusiasm and their determination. Yes, today we open our arms to embrace and welcome these 75 million new European citizens. This is your home too now. It is yours to cherish, to make yourselves at home in, to dream in, to adorn, to extend even further. And, if necessary one day, it will be your duty to stand by our side and defend its values and its founding principles. We have built sound democratic institutions. They must be consolidated for the new era that is dawning, without undermining what makes them original, balanced and dynamic. We have a common currency, the euro. But it is not yet used by all of us. And we do not yet have sufficiently close coordination of our economic policies to properly fine-tune the motor for our growth and overcome the scourge of unemployment and poverty. We have a large single market where persons, goods, services and capital circulate freely. But there is still much to do before it is carried through to completion and we have modern infrastructure networks that can draw the full benefit from this market. At Lisbon we adopted a strategy for growth based on knowledge, solidarity and respect for the environment. But we still have far to go before we fully mobilise our societies' human and technological potential. We are endeavouring to establish a common area of security in justice and home affairs but we are only just at the beginning of this process. Lastly, the war in Iraq has shown we need to work together much more energetically if we want to have an influence over world affairs, to make our voice heard and defend our principles. To do that, we must develop a common external policy based on shared concepts. And we must develop the tools we need for our collective security and defence. History, particularly the recent past in the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa, has taught us that the world is still a dangerous place. Within our borders, which today stretch further, we have established peace. But we need to develop a ring of friends around us, a circle of friendly nations on our borders, stretching from Morocco, along the southern shores of the Mediterranean and up along the eastern confines of our Union to Russia. With this ring of neighbours and friendly countries we intend ultimately to share all the benefits of the Union that contribute to stability and prosperity. All except our institutions. In Europe's name, I want to send a message of solidarity and friendship to Africa -- the isolated continent, excluded from the mainstream, prey to so many conflicts and scourges. Cooperation with Africa was enshrined in the Treaty of Rome. It will continue to be our priority. I send Europe's warm greetings to Latin America, where they are working to achieve unity despite a long-drawn-out economic crisis. I send friendly greetings to Asia, where they have observed our progress towards unity with interest and sympathy over the decades. Unified at last, the European continent is ready to work with these countries to draw up rules for globalisation managed for the benefit of all peoples. Lastly, to our American friends and allies I say this: no one in Europe has forgotten we owe our freedom to you. Now it is time to set our recent differences aside and build on the centuries of friendship between our peoples. It is time to put cooperation between Europe and the United States back on track as the basis for stable peace in the world. As we celebrate the peaceful unification of our continent today, let us pay tribute to the great vision of Europe's founding fathers. History has confirmed their farsightedness. We were once six nations just recovering from the destruction of the war. Today we are 25 free, strong nations. And tomorrow there will probably be even more of us, in a Union of free, peace-loving States and peoples. Like our founding fathers, our references are the principles we have inherited from the Age of Enlightenment: freedom, democracy, the rule of law, justice, tolerance and the peaceful settlement of disputes. In a world of globalisation, those principles can only be meaningful if we endeavour to apply them universally. Europe is our home. A just world our aspiration. Bugün Avrupa Birliği on yeni üye devletin ve 75 milyon kişinin katılımıyla genişlemektedir. Ayrıca diğer ülkelerin, özellikle de Romanya ve Bulgaristan'ın 2007'de üyeliği için yol açılmaktadır. Avrupa'nın kömür ve çelik konusunda ilk anlaşmanın imzalanmasından beri başardıklarından haklı olarak gurur duyabiliriz. Aramıza katılan ülkeler, kat ettikleri mesafeden gurur duyarak, isteklerini ve kararlılıklarını paylaşmaya hazır olarak Avrupa Birliği'ne girmeyi hak ediyorlar. Halklarımız onlarca yıldır barış, işbirliği ve dostluk içinde yaşıyor; ülkeler daha da yakınlaşıyor ve demokrasi, hukukun üstünlüğü, azınlıklara saygı göstermek, hoşgörü ve dayanışma gibi ortak değerler öncelikli hale geliyor. Önümüzde yapılacak çok iş var. Oluşturduğumuz güçlü demokratik kurumlar, bu yeni dönemde konsolide edilmelidir. Ortak para birimimiz olan euro henüz bütün üyelerimiz tarafından kullanılmıyor. Ayrıca ekonomi politikalarımız, büyüme motorumuzun hassas ayarını yapabilecek ve işsizlik ve yoksulluk gibi sorunları aşabilecek kadar iyi koordine edilmiş durumda değil. Lizbon'da bilgi, dayanışma ve çevreye saygıya dayalı bir büyüme stratejisi benimsedik. Ancak toplumlarımızın insan ve teknoloji açısından potansiyelini tamamen kullanabilmemiz için daha çok yol katetmemiz gerekiyor. Irak savaşı, dünyadaki olayları etkilemek, sesimizi duyurmak ve prensiplerimizi savunmak istiyorsak bir arada çok daha enerjik biçimde çalışmamız gerektiğini ortaya çıkardı. Bunu başarabilmek için, ortak kavramlara dayalı ortak bir dış politika oluşturmamız gerekmektedir. Ayrıca kolektif güvenlik ve savunma için gerekli araçları da geliştirmemiz şarttır. Bugün kıtamızın barış içinde birleşmesini kutlarken, Avrupa'nın kurucularını da anmalıyız; tarih onların ileri görüşlülüklerinde ne kadar haklı olduklarını kanıtladı. Kurucularımız gibi bizim de referans noktamız, aydınlanma çağından bize miras kalan prensiplerdir: özgürlük, demokrasi, hukukun üstünlüğü, adalet, hoşgörü ve anlaşmazlıkların barış için çözümü. |