Mr President, first of all I would like to turn to my colleague from Munich, Mr Sakellariou. I may not always be of the same mind as Mr Dupuis but what I would like to say is that he is a confirmed democrat, and hitherto it was customary in this House for people to negotiate with each other. If that is to change then rules must be laid down, and we must also put a stop to your group, as well as other groups, regularly starting joint initiatives with the group that Mr Modrow belongs to, Mr Modrow being the only Member of this House who for decades served a criminal regime, that of the Berlin Wall murderers, in a prominent capacity. I would like to make this quite plain to you all, so as to avoid any crossed wires. We must ensure that clear, democratic criteria pertaining to a state under the rule of law are then established. As to the issue itself, I would like to say that although the Council was rightly criticised for its failure to attend – and I would second this – yesterday, during Question Time, we had a debate with the Council on Kosovo lasting an hour and ten minutes. The Council behaved relatively well but I am ashamed of what this House had to say for, with few exceptions, all we could talk about was that there are more serious attacks and worse human rights violations going on in Kosovo today than there were before NATO intervened. It was even suggested that NATO ought to be brought before the Court of Justice in The Hague. This was an atrocious way to go on and I simply have to say that it produced a distorted image of the opinion of this House. I am therefore very pleased with the motion that has been worked out with a large consensus today, for we must get something straight: attacks are currently taking place, as are unresolved and regrettable incidents, but what we do not have, thank God, is the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands or millions of people, brought about by state-sanctioned violence. That is what NATO intervention brought to an end. That is why NATO does not deserve to go to The Hague, rather this House ought to have awarded it the Sakharov prize. I would like to make quite plain that we too must be sure to stand by the commitments we made in this respect. We assumed responsibility for Kosovo, with all the consequences that entails, but of course this means that in view of the conflicts that are taking place – and it stands to reason that this should be so – we must see to it that a functioning civil administration is set up again with all haste. I would like to lend my express support to Bertel Haarder and others, who said that we must make the building up of police and judicial structures our priority. We have failed miserably on this front. The first mistake was that this task was transferred to the UN, which is definitely failing to get to grips with it. The second mistake is that many States, including the Member States, are not living up to their commitments, particularly those of a financial nature. We hear about the reconstruction of Kosovo and the Stability Pact, but all of that is very much in keeping with the culture of announcements that is very much the ‘in thing’ these days. In other words, millions and billions are promised and announced but only a relatively small proportion of this sees the light of day. I also call upon the Commission – and I know that Commissioner Patten is one of the best Commissioners we have – to make a huge effort here and ensure that the whole host of announcements made by the States – not the EU, the individual States that is – actually materialise. Otherwise there will be a steady stream of outrages and attacks and any attempts to establish rule of law will come to nought. As for Serbia and the thousands of abducted Albanians who continue to languish in prisons in Yugoslavia, I would like to make the following point quite plain: it is absolutely scandalous that the Council is beginning to lift sanctions against rump Yugoslavia, that those on the left of this House are demanding that more sanctions be lifted, yet not one of these motions states that this is inextricably linked by way of a condition with the release of political prisoners in Serbia, including Kosovan Albanians. We must gain in credibility and act clearly and robustly in the interests of democracy and the rule of law.

Political group: PPE-DE