Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must not let the crises – which range from North Korea to the Middle East and the unpredictability of the situation in Iraq – distract our attention from Afghanistan. I therefore welcome the way in which the new Greek Presidency has made Afghanistan a priority issue or has the desire to do so. Despite the fall of the Taliban regime and the installation of Hamid Karzai as the country's president, the battle for a stable Afghanistan is far from being won. It is disconcerting to learn that Taliban warriors are again organising themselves, under the warlord Hekmatyar, with the intention of trampling the delicate bloom of constitutional democracy underfoot once more. It is a cause for concern that the authority of the interim Karzai government extends no further than Kabul's outer perimeter, and the news of resumed opium cultivation is disturbing. This is, in essence, a race against time, but, amid all our efforts, we must not abandon our support for the political timetable, according to which general elections will eventually be held in mid-2004. The balance sheet of events to date can be compared to the well-known glass of water, which is either half full or half empty. At the end of the day, we have to get used to the idea of having to provide, in the longer term, both financial and political support if democratic institutions are to have a chance of being established in this country, ravaged as it has been by war and civil strife that has lasted for decades. This will of course also require the extension of the mandate of ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force. I find it difficult to fathom the reasoning behind the announcement that this extension would run only until 2003, but we can welcome the way in which Germany and the Netherlands have declared their willingness to assume command of this force. What this indicates in general terms is that it is only with much hesitation that Europeans will commit themselves to long-term involvement, and do so in small stages. Even the many conferences in Washington, Kabul, Bonn and Oslo sometimes tend to give the impression of being sedatives, rather than expressions of an energetic policy aimed at stiffening the resolve to establish democracy in this country. The demand that the mandate of the International Security Assistance Force be extended, along with the area under that mandate, is a justified one. To date, alas, it has not borne much relation to reality. In addition, all the countries bordering on Afghanistan need to cooperate in preventing the Al-Qaida network from regaining strength in the area. A certain amount has been done about this. Nor should we entirely abandon the idea of a real reconstruction agency along the lines of that in Kosovo. Sending another delegation of this Parliament to Afghanistan early next year is certainly a worthwhile thing to do, but it will be meaningful only if policy reflects the insights gained from it. That policy must include, as a priority, political help with the passing on of administrative know-how. What is this about, first and foremost? This is about keeping civil and military power separate from each other, it is about preventing reactionary fundamentalist Islamic tendencies in the justice system, and, above all, this is about preventing humanitarian crises.

Political group: PPE-DE